AMES – Advanced Media Entertainment Society

On May 16, we held the Final Showcase for Animation and Film. Twenty two teams competed across four different divisions, with our first teams ever in Animation (Comprehensive High School).

Competition was held at Washington High School in Parkland, hosted by Chris Tumbusch and his film club students. Thanks WHS team!

We’ll get competition videos up soon, but in the meantime we wanted to announce competition winners. Teams who won a category will get an award certificate distributed soon.

Thank you to our students, parents, advisors/instructors for being part of this competition! Special shoutout to our judges, James Clark, Eric Belgau and Piper Yarrington!

Awesome job Film & Animation creators!

Outstanding Achievement Awards for Film:

Writing / Story: Team 7, “Romantic Hostage”
Cinematography: Team 6, “Hunter and the Fawn”
Acting: Team 5, “Pressure”
Unique Perspective: Taco Productions, “Time is Gold”
Editing: Taco Productions, “Time is Gold”
Direction: Team 5, “Pressure”

Outstanding Achievement Awards for Animation:

Writing / Story: Loungeware Studios, “Fishbowl”
Cinematography: Dicentra Studios, “Why the Moon Shines”
Character Performance: Trashy, Inc., “The Last
Sound: Smily Face, “Wonderland”
Unique Perspective: Smily Face, “Wonderland”
Editing: See Lions, “Cheesemates”
Direction: M.A.K., “More Than Meets the Eye”

Best Short Film (Middle School):

3rd Place: MKV, “It Will Get To You”
1st Place (Tie): Secret Studious, “My Secrett” / Studio 4, “Opinions Can Hurt”

Best Short Film (Comprehensive High School):

3rd Place: Everett Film Society, “Water in the Place of Our Lives”
2nd Place: Team 7, “Romantic Hostage”
1st Place: Team 5, “Pressure”

Best Animated Short (Comprehensive High School):

1st Place: Smily Face, “Wonderland”

Best Animated Short (Skill Center):

2nd Place (Tie): Loungeware Studios, “Fishbowl” / Dicentra Studios, “Why the Moon Shines”
1st Place: M.A.K., “More Than Meets the Eye”

• Showcase Date: Saturday, May 16, 2026, at Washington High School in Tacoma, WA
• Teams Arrive for Tech: 11 AM
  • Teams/Advisors check files, become familiar with the presentation location, prepare for the event, etc.
• Showcase Start Time: 12 PM – 4 PM
• Notes: There is no food/drink allowed in theatre area – Food/snacks/etc need to be kept to the lobby area and/or outside.

(Contest 2/2)

As part of our continuing mission into branding/etc, we’re renaming our competitions!

The formal name will remain AMES <subject> Competition, but like the Academy Awards (aka Oscars), we wanted to have a ‘formal but informal’ name for the awards themselves. “The Oscar goes to…” just sounds better than “The Outstandanding Achievement Award for <thing> goes to…”

In the entertainment industry, a performer who wins an Emmy (TV), Grammy (Music), Oscar (Movies) and Tony (Theatre) is known as an “EGOT” (seriously, why wasn’t this GOET?? “Steven Speilberg is an EGOT” is WAY LESS COOL than “Steven Speilberg is a GOET”)

So we’re looking to rename our awards, with each contest being named separately, in a way that is both representative of the respective industry (Game Competition shouldn’t be named a Toyota because that Just Doesn’t Make Sense) and where we’d have a cool title or something for someone that managed to score a win in all five (like GOET because I’m not acknowledging EGOT)

For obvious reasons everything I’m suggesting here is a blatant copyright violation and couldn’t be used, but I’m trying to use common references for quality examples:

Idea 1: Competitions are named after something representative of each respective thing (Such as “And the Mario goes to…” for the game competition), where the combination of all five spells out something cooler than EGOT (bonus if you can make it MEDIA because that’s our jam)

Idea 2: Game is Pikachu, Music is Kriketune, Sound is Rillaboom, etc – and when you’ve caught them all… you’ve caught them all.

The Five Competitions (so far):

Game Development
Animation
Film
Music
SoundFX

This contest is open to *ANYONE* (does not have to ONLY be students!) and winner might… just might… receive an honorary not-EGOT… because you’re really a GOET and deserve better than that 😉

(Contest 1/2)

It’s *BEYOND* time to change the AMES logo (the original was a *FAST* placeholder made in WordArt that was NEVER meant to last this long), and one of our priorities for the ’26-’27 year is updating our branding… but why not start now?!

Enter Logo Contest:

This contest is open to ANYONE (Students, Teachers, Your Spouse, That Neighbor’s Kid, whatever! Got a graphics program at your school? They’re welcome to enter!) – we’ll probably have some small token prize but also recognitions/credits/etc.

Specs:

Deliverable: SVG File

Colors: Minimalist. Logo should be able to be represented in black and white, and look good in palette swaps. Multiple colors is fine (even encouraged) as long as it’ll reduce to something that COULD look good in simple B&W (NOT greyscale); alternatively a simple color / b&W alternative file is OK!

AMES doesn’t have official colors, this is a good place to leave your mark! But we want it to be able to look good in a variety of colors so it could be palette swapped (fit the ‘vibe’ of a given year’s contest/etc)

SIMPLE! COULD a person draw it by hand reasonably closely?

AMES is about supporting Media Creators – currently in games, film, animation, music and sound, so visually reflecting that core value is important.

Submissions and/or questions should be sent to jflatmo@gmail.com with a *CLEAR* subject line (Something along the lines of “AMES Logo Contest”) so it doesn’t get ignored as spam.

There is no specific timeline on this contest – the committee will be evaluating graphics as they come in, and once we see something that we want to use that will be the winner!

(this post will be edited for FAQ purposes as needed)

Hey everyone! I hope you’re all getting a chance to deep dive into “Everything Comes With a Cost” – I’m looking forward to seeing everyone’s projects when we hit completion in May!

Some quick FAQs for things that came up last night – this isn’t an “exhaustive” list but definitely wanted to cover a few bases for things that came up.

TPAs (Third Party Assets)

For all projects, all tasks/assets SHOULD be completed by the team members (max five per team).

For Game projects, some code/tool assets created by others may be used, but must be approved prior to submission. Advisors need to fill out the TPA request (if an advisor doesn’t have the link, they should contact Jim). Determinations usually happen fairly quick (day or two), but may take up to two weeks. General criterion for approval is:
1) Is this something that should REASONABLY be done by a student?
2) Is this something that alters the game to a point where the project is about the asset rather than the other way around? (ie., ‘easy button’)
If the answer to either of the above is a ‘Yes’, approval is unlikely. If the answer to both is ‘No’, approval is likely.

For Game, Film and Animation: Since most of our member schools do not have sound creation/editing/etc in the curriculum and doing so is far out of scope, third party audio MAY be used in those projects. This does NOT need explicit approval on a per-asset basis (no TPA requests), but all audio must be correctly licensed for our distribution (downloadable games via itch/ames website) AND must be cited in credits (even if licensing doesn’t require it). See Jim for validation on specific assets (“Is this song legal?”).
Licensing includes performance rights for covers (even if performed by a student) – student performing a copyrighted song is still pirating a copyrighted song.

Using Third Party music/sound WILL disqualify team from winning music/sound related Outstanding Achievement awards (which are intended to recognize student creators) but will not otherwise adversely affect scoring. For example, a team could hypothetically import open-source sound effects and use them in their game, they would be ineligible to win the OA for sound but still could score a 10 in the Craftsmanship Criterion in the rubric (“Game is highly polished and publish-quality in current state. Sounds complement and enhance the game experience.”)

Broadly speaking: Rules around Sound (which loops are allowed, etc) are, by necessity, looser in Game/Film/Animation and much tighter in SoundFX/Music. For more specific rulings in your situation, Advisors can contact Jim (Game/Film/Animation), Nellie (Game) or Scott (SoundFX/Music) for clarity.

Performer Rule

Although teams are limited to five members, projects may include performances outside the five team members. For example, a student film may utilize actors outside the five team members, a game team may have a friend voice act a part, a music composition may have another student playing an instrument.

To qualify: the “Performer” must be explicitly following writing and direction from a Team Member (for example, Team Member writes a set of lines for Voice Actor, who then reads them). If the Team Member wrote the script for the Actor, that’s fine, but if the actor ‘wrote’ their own dialogue (improvised, etc) that goes against this rule. Advisors should use reasonable judgement when enforcing the rule – an Actor basically staying on script but doing minor ad-libbing is probably fine, rewriting their part is out of scope.

For music/sound competitions, ‘performer’ also applies to instruments – someone playing a piano part written by a Team Member is fine, but the Team Member telling the piano player to come up with some music to go with their work is out of scope.

And we’re off!

Prompt for the 2026 AMES Season is (drumroll…):

Prompt: “Everything Has a Cost”

In this challenge, every choice your game makes the player confront will take something away — time, energy, resources, relationships, or even stability. Think about systems where progress always comes with a tradeoff, and where players must constantly weigh what they gain against what they lose. Your project can explore this idea literally through mechanics like resource management or stamina, or metaphorically through themes like trust, reputation, or personal growth. The goal is to design an experience where decisions matter because nothing is free, and every action shapes what becomes possible next.

Our launch video is below, which includes both the prompt release above, and some of the Q&A!

Get out there and start creating!!

For the tenth annual Advanced Media Entertainment Society (AMES) Game Design Competition and Showcase, students were required to make a game that used elements studied this year, from concept to design and implementation. They competed at their local school level, and teams won the right to represent their school and compete at this state-level event at Microsoft’s Studio B in Redmond, WA, on May 31, 2025.

2025 Prompt

All classes were given the same prompt and eight weeks to complete a game based on the prompt:

“The masks we wear.”

Itch.io Showcase Page

• amesshowcase.itch.io

Super Showcase Judges

Crystal Reid
Crystal started working in games in 2010 as a QA Tester at ArenaNet. Since then, her career journey has jumped disciplines multiple times, first starting in Design, then transitioning to Narrative, eventually taking on Audio and Cinematic department responsibilities, and now finally moving into the role of Production. Currently at Bungie, she is a Production Director on Destiny 2, overseeing the shared creative services for the franchise.

Matt Pennebaker
Matt has worked in almost all areas of design over his 15+ year career, from QA to Design Director and many stops in between. Most of that time was spent working on Guild Wars 2, but also includes time spent working on Plants vs. Zombies 3, an unannounced Dungeons & Dragons game, and currently an unannounced game at Zenimax Online Studios. Matt’s primary role is to design and prototype design tools and facilitate content creation with other designers.

Kevin Martens
Kevin started in games as a writer in 1998 on the Baldur’s Gate series at BioWare. While there, he made Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, and Dragon Age Origins. He has also worked on Diablo III, and World of Warcraft at Blizzard Entertainment and currently leads the Design Department at Bungie Inc. His favorite part of game design is finding new combinations of elements in a game that make all of them feel fresh again.

Caitlin Nairon
Caitlin started out as an online instructor for iD Tech camps, teaching classes like 3D modeling and animation in Maya, 3D game design in Unreal Engine or Godot, and programming in Java or C++. They then migrated to the game industry in 2022 at Bungie as an Associate Technical Designer working on Destiny 2’s seasonal and expansion content, mainly working with object mechanics. Now at Zenimax Online Studios as a Technical Designer working on an unannounced project, Caitlin is primarily focused on designing and trailblazing sustainable workflows and systems for designers to use when creating core player content.

Kelsey Pickinpaugh
Kelsey has long held an affinity for the multi-faceted world of player experience. Her first job working on virtual casino games as a UI artist was her introduction to UX, where it became a crash course in player psychology. After working in mobile gaming for several years, Kelsey joined ArenaNet (working on an unreleased title) before moving on to Undead Labs for State of Decay 2: Juggernaut Edition and leading UX design and direction of State of Decay 3. Kelsey’s passion for UX grows from her desire to make games more accessible to all players.

Competition Event Host

Nellie Hughes
As a game design industry veteran of 20 years, Nellie Hughes has worked on games such as City of Heroes, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, and Guild Wars 2 in various ways. She now resides as a Design Director at Xbox Publishing, helping guide the team and department to be the best they can be.

Super Showcase Program

Super Showcase Rubric

Outstanding Achievement Awards in Video Game Design

Gameplay Mechanics: Medibilis
Worldbuilding: He’s Behind Me, Isn’t He?
Art: Entrailed (Special Recognition: Five Shifts at Derpy’s)
Character Performance: 3 Masks
Unique Perspective: Illumoria
Sound: Mask Shooty Shooty
Controls: Plaguebreaker
UI/UX: Drama Outlet

Middle School Video Game Design Winners

1st Place: Five Shifts at Derpy’s
2nd Place: HyperMurder

High School Video Game Design Winners

1st Place: Imaskapable
2nd Place: Mask Shooty Shooty
3rd Place: He’s Behind Me, Isn’t He

Skill Center Video Game Design Winners

1st Place: PlagueBreaker
2nd Place: Entrailed
3rd Place: 3 Masks

YouTube Playlist of the Event

Comprehensive High School Competitors

Capital High School

Olympia, WA

Scott Le Duc
Video Game Design Instructor

“Masked” 
Programming/Producer: Landen Guthrie 
Design: Brody Rau 
Sound: Spencer James

“QuickSwap” 
Programming/Producer: Lex Lehr 
Art: Jonas Forgacs 
Design: Ayden Tucker

Why Not You Academy 

Des Moines, Washington 

Andrew Edmonds
Daniel Glaser 
Instructors

“Highway Rush” 
Programming/Producer: Yousuf Mohamed 
Design: Malachi Wondimagegnehu 
Sound: Abdirisaq Mohamed 

“Warn Facade” 
Producer: Jeremiah Collins 
Art: Connie Ivory 
Programming: Sammy Huxtable 
Design: Jaxon Rowland

Lindbergh High 

Renton, Washington

Gina Hansen
Instructor 

“Tooth & Nail” 
Programming/Producer: Veld Tocher 
Art: Atticus McSweeney 
Design: Skye Kelly

Everett High School

Everett, WA

Jim Flatmo
Video Game Design Instructor

“Imaskapable” 
Nicholas Bertiaux 
Thienbao Vo 
David Moiseyev 
Nathan Erickson 
Dereck Castillo Rodriguez 

“Mask Shooty Shooty” 
Kaloni Herring 
Ignatius Nelms 
Derek Haas 
Kyle Steele 
David Porter-Alvarez

Keithley Middle School 

Tacoma, Washington 

Brendan Stanton
Instructor

“Five Shifts At Derpy’s” 
Programming: Jose Franco Moreno 
Design: Josef Call 
Sound: Iris Little 

“HyperMurder” 
Producer: Liem Poore 
Art: Chanraksa Theuon 
Programming: Zachary Gavigan 
Design: Nathan Landers 
Sound: Jerry Tauala

Oak Harbor High School 

Renton, Washington 

Susan Rogers 
Instructor

“ Illumoria” 
Design/Producer: Trevor Jones 
Art: Kaitlin Cellona, Antoinette Scherer
Music: Raymond Matlack 

“Mega Antivirus Super Killer” 
Programming: Zachary Carothers 
Design: Lucas Gruenwald

Skill Center Competitors

Northwest Career & Technical Academy

Mount Vernon, WA

Jason Pasimio
Video Game Development Instructor

Spider Studios 
“3 Masks” 
Art: Grace Nelson, Taylee Brevick 
Design: Grizz Norman 
Programming: Jensen Lee, Jamie Cook 

The Insomniacs 
“Medibis” 
Art: Aslin Mellema 
Design: Xander Brown 
Programming: Echo Swanson

Tri-Tech Skills Center 

Kennewick, Washington 

Mat Adelmund Instructor

 TeamTech 
“Cyberdash” 
Art: Peyton Privratsky 
Programming: Hunter Taylor, Caleb Guzman 
Design: Jaxon Fuhriman 

Facadicle Four 
“Facadesicle” 
Art: Logan Pick 
Design: Sierra Moscatelli 
Programming: Angel Espinoza, Max Lorenzo

Sno-Isle Tech Skills Center

Everett, WA

Derek Sturm
Video Game Design Instructor

Keira Wentworth 
Animation Instructor 

Helmet Head Studios 
“Drama Outlet” 
Art: Harley Hedglin, Lazlo Pashelk, Mark Sivigliano 
Programming: Tobiah Day, Ethan Kellar 

How Hungry Studios 
“Plaguebreaker” 
Art: Ruth-Anne Jones 
Programming: Benicio Burgos, Braden Nichols, Cayden Goldman, Jaden Smith

West Sound Tech 

Bermerton, Washington 

Tony Sharpe
Instructor 

Three Bugs in a Trenchcoat 
“Entrailed” 
Art/Design: Kayla Fisher 
Programming: Nick Klusman, Morgan Erickson 
Sound: Morgan Erickson 

Crystal River 
“Maskpocalypse” 
Programming/Design: Wyatt Guski 
Art/Music: Tristen Simon

Thank You!

We would like to thank our Advisory Committees for going above and beyond in their help with curriculum steering, helping students with their projects, and constant support for our programs.

We would also like to thank our industry representatives for attending this event and being part of our panel. We really appreciate everything you do!

A special thank you to itch.io for hosting our Showcase.

To all of our guests, thank you for sharing this day with us in support of our students.

For the sixth annual Advanced Media Entertainment Society (AMES) Film and Animation Design Competition and Showcase, students were required to make a film or animation that used elements studied this year, from concept to design, and implementation. They competed at their local school level, and five teams won the right to represent their school and compete at this state-level event in Mount Vernon, WA at Northwest Career and Technical Academy on May 17, 2025.

All classes were given the following prompt and eight weeks to complete a film or animation based on the prompt:

“The masks we wear.”

Itch.io Showcase Pages

• itch.io/jam/2025-ames-film-showcase

Super Showcase Judges

• Jodylene Delosreyes
• Jax Delosreyes
• John Ebenger (via Zoom)

YouTube Playlist of The Event

Super Showcase Rubric

Animation Rubric

• ames.team/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/showcase-project-rubric-ani.pdf

Film Rubric

• ames.team/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/showcase-project-rubric-film.pdf

Skill Center Animation Winners

1st Place: Happy Company
2nd Place: Clown in the Dumps
3rd Place: TIE between Helium Hindrance and Plague

High School Short Film Winners

1st Place: Dottie
2nd Place: Disbanded
3rd Place: Behind the Smiles

Middle School Short Film Winners

1st Place: Be Free
2nd Place: The Mask We Wear (Awesome Shot)
3rd Place: The Masked

Outstanding Achievement Awards in Animation

Writing/Story: Helium Hindrance

Cinematography: Happy Company

Character Performance: Distant Faces

Sound: Workshop Personality

Unique Perspective: Misfitted Mask

Direction: Clown in the Dumps

Editing: Beneath the Surface

Outstanding Achievement Awards in Film

Writing/Story: Dottie

Cinematography: Dottie

Acting: Murderer in the Mask

Sound: Behind the Smiles

Unique Perspective: Behind the Smiles

Editing: (Jaxsin) The Mask We Wear

Direction: Mask

Location, Date, and Time

DATE: Saturday, May 17

STARTING TIME: 1 PM, tech set-up starts at noon

LOCATION: Northwest Career and Technical Academy (NCTA)
2205 West Campus Place
Mount Vernon, WA 98273

Updates

Hi everyone! A couple quick updates this morning!

Animation and Film both have their rubrics added on the Film / Animation Competition page. No changes to either rubric from last year other than the updated prompt.

Added Animation Milestones to that page as well – Keira gave those to me last week, I posted them and then realized today they weren’t linked anywhere… they’re accessible now. Thanks Keira for sharing those!

If anyone has any other resources to share for the contest please let Jim or Scott know!

As I was updating the pages I haven’t been able to find the master copy of the Animation/Film contest rules. Functionally they are the same as the game design competition but with a different set of deliverables (the film itself and an itch.io page to access it) – I’m going to keep looking and/or draft a new set if necessary and get that posted ASAP, for the interim the Game Design rules are/have been what we’ve been following anyway.