ITI Articles

As Dancing with the Stars fever rekindled around New Zealand, a group of seven digital media students at Auckland's Media Design School worked to develop an online interactive offering for the hugely popular TV show.

The seven students spent two weeks planning and creating 'Sabotage the Stars', a flash-based online game where players attempt to sabotage a dancing celebrity as they glide around the dance floor. The students formed a project team including a team leader, programmers, 3D modellers and flash developers who worked on individual aspects before bringing the pieces together to form the final game.

"Live projects such as these are an integral part of the learning process for students at Media Design School," explains Daniel White, the class tutor. "The benefits of working with a real client not only enable students to put what they have learnt into practice, but it also gives them a better understanding of time management, deadlines and teamwork," says Daniel.

Mark Smith, the student project leader found that brainstorming ideas in the creative development process took a considerable period of time. "We collectively developed a game concept that we felt fans of the show would enjoy playing. Once we had the core concept for the game, choosing the types of sabotage devices for each contestant was a load of fun. Some were obvious, such as the discus for Beatrice Faumuina and the bike for Steve Gurney, however other celebrities had a number of claims to fame so we had to decide which was the most relevant," says Mark.

Another team member, Stuart McPherson, enjoyed developing Rodney Hide's secret weapons. They armed him with a heavy budget deficit to drop down on unsuspecting dancers, and his infamous smart car makes a runaway guest appearance in the game.

Media Design School has a long history of working on projects with TVNZ. Students studying creative advertising, 3D visualisation, digital media and visual effects have been involved with past TVNZ projects, and there are a number of future projects in the pipeline.

To view the Sabotage the Stars game, click here and look at the bottom of the page.