Question: Team Members Full Names:
Answer: Edgar Figueiredo Neto, Luciano José Firmino Júnior, Victor Rafael Nascimento dos Santos, Vinícius Ottoni Borges de Figueiredo

Question: Mentor:
Answer: Diogo Romero Burgos do Nascimento

Question: Title of Project:
Answer: Choice

Question: Project Overview:
Answer: Choice is a game that brings together the best of two universes: the fun of Arcade games and the challenging gameplay of Strategy games. The result is one fun and addicting game that allows the player to experience changing the world with teamwork and the right decisions. It's an exciting party game for four players, and the team members have already become addicted. We've been playing it a lot on our free time. Hopefully, by playing the game, people will realize, such as we did, that teamwork and smart choices can make a lot of difference to change the world outside of the screen as well.

Question: Technology/Software Used:
Answer: Visual Studio 2008, XNA Game Studio 3.0

Question: Inspiration: What inspired your team to enter the Microsoft Imagine Cup and why did you choose the Game Development competition?
Answer: Being pro-active students, Imagine Cup is a part of our culture, and being on the worldwide finals has always been a dream for all of us. Though it's a very challenging competition, we chose Game Development because it was the perfect excuse for doing what we love. We're all passionate about games. This was the best way for us to unite work and fun.

Question: Team History: How did your team meet?
Answer: The four of us come from four different universities. We were all members of the .NET Cells in our universities and the group was formed in a .NET Cell integration reunion, last year. Though from different institutions we all had one dream, and we've been working really hard to pursuit it since.

Question: Team Experience: What experience did your team have with Game Development before competing in the Imagine Cup?
Answer: When the team was formed, Luciano was already studying XNA for quite a while and was working for a local game studio in Recife. Edgar was alson studying XNA and on the 2nd semester on his Masters degree on musical processing applied to games. Other than that, the team members had no further experience with games, besides playig them.

Question: Highlights: What has been the best part of the Imagine Cup competition to date?
Answer: Participating of the National Microsoft XNA Game Development Competition: 'XNA Challenge' and winning second place was definitely a landmark for our team. We were working really hard, and the silver medal has made us analyze our team structure and the weak points of our game. From then on, we worked twice as hard and practically had no rest, reviewing all aspects of our project, in order to make it worldwide finals material. A project that demands this kind of dedication is a unique opportunity to test your limits and grow both personally and professionally.

Question: Inspiration: How did your team come up with your submission? Include which Millennium Development Goal inspired your solution.
Answer: We didn't want to limit our game to just one millennium goal because we wanted it to be, besides fun, a tool for developing the players global consciousness about the problems our world faces today. To make a game with this vision to be still fun and addictive was a huge game design challenge. We knew that we needed a target-audience for our game and that it needed to please them. So we carried out a market research with our target audience. This helped us get to know, for instance, what's their favorite game genres and what did they like most in our game. With that data in hands, we started the game design process trying to incorporate what we've learned throughout the research.

Question: Challenges: What personal or technological challenges did your team face while developing your submission?
Answer: Game Design was, without a doubt, the most challenging aspect of our project. It had to be educative and entertaining at the same time. Challenging and entertaining the player while teaching them about our world's problems is very difficult. To find this balance, we've used a lot of symbolism. This helps the player understand that teamwork and partnerships can help save the world without having to *explicitly think* about that while playing. Factors such as immersion and replay value were also considered and incorporated into gameplay.

Question: Future Plans: What does your team plan on doing after the Worldwide Finals in Cairo, Egypt? Do you plan to use your project to launch a new business?
Answer: We sure think about opening our own game studio.

Question: Links to more information (i.e. website, blog):
Answer: Edgar's blog: http://edgarfigueiredo.wordpress.com Victor's online portfolio: http://www.victorafael.com Sharp Games (Brazilian XNA Portal): http://www.sharpgames.net