Games Tournament Horror Maze helps raise £1,000

Canterbury College students gave their classmates and tutors a scare while raising more than £1,000 for charity when they created a real-life computer game based on the Silent Hill horror series.

BTEC Games Development first year students faithfully recreated a nightmarish scene from the bestselling horror-mystery Playstation games as part of the College’s fifth annual Games Tournament, a week of video game-based fundraising, on Thursday, 15 December.

They teamed up with prosthetic make-up professionals to create the horror maze designed as a dilapidated flat teeming with monsters, which has been built inside the College’s television studio to help raise an impressive £1,445.16 for Cancer Research UK.

Armed with just a torch and their wits, paying players examined the crime scene for evidence to acquit an innocent man of murder. As they explored the pitch black maze, hidden monsters played by actors in prosthetic make-up sprung out on them. An eerie soundtrack and bangs and screams coming from the walls added to the tension.

One player, Sakinah Mawji, was left shaken but impressed by the horror maze. She said: “It was terrifying but the make-up was really good. It’s quite an enclosed space and the monsters are right up next to you when you shine the torchlight on them.”

The monsters were designed by special effects make-up artists David Foxley and Lauren Gregory, who have worked on a number of TV and film projects.

The Silent Hill horror maze helped the Games Tournament to surpass last year’s total of £814. The four-day event also included knock-out contests in fighting, football, shooting and driving games. In the case of the fighting game, where contests played popular beat ‘em up Tekken, there were gaming and clothing prizes on offer.

Karaoke, a mobile disco and students dressed up as their favourite computer game characters added to the fundraising fun. The event was run by Media and Computing students.

Games Development tutor Stuart Dodd was chuffed with the amount raised. He said: “I’m absolutely amazed. Reaching £1,000 has always been a target but this is the first time we’ve done it, and we smashed that amount.”