Piranha Fishes for Entries

Piranha Interactive Publishing is offering Cash for Art's Sake. It will hold a 3D design competition for its action game Dead Reckoning, set for fall release.

"We thought it was fun and challenging to come up with and implement the levels," said Luke Ahearn, president of Goldtree, the company that developed the game for Piranha. "Since we decided that other 3D designers would get as much of a kick out of it as we did, we designed the game to support independent levels and a level editor which can import 3D objects from many 3D design tools."

And thus, a contest was born.

Piranha promises to award US$10,000 to the 3D designer or modeler who creates what it deems is the best level for Dead Reckoning. The second-place winner will receive $5,000, $2,500 will go to the designer of the third-place level, and the top ten entrants will get a 3Dfx-based graphics card from ELSA. The contest runs through Oct. 15.

In the game, players fight to the death against alien opponents in cylindrical environments called "arenas." The retail version of Dead Reckoning will include 15 arenas.