HSE CREATIVE OPEN: A Global Student Competition by HSE ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL
The competition aims to bring together original ideas and standout projects across design, contemporary art, and fashion, while highlighting career opportunities in the creative industry.
Students from any university, anywhere in the world, are welcome to participate.
The Red Month by Valentina Balitskaya
About the nomination
This is a new themed game art competition spotlighting projects with dark, pessimistic, or existential themes.
Objective: To select and showcase projects that explore intellectual and philosophical horror, going beyond the typical genre clichés of popular culture. While horror is widely popular, we are looking for thought-provoking, multifaceted works that intellectually unsettle and challenge the viewer.
Participants: Artists and game creators working with themes such as cosmic horror, body horror, existentialism, pessimism, dystopia, and dark futurism. There are no strict genre limits, but all entries must be fundamentally dark, oppressive, or unsettling in both theme and artistic expression.
Submission Format: Participants must submit an illustrated long-read outlining their concept, along with a short in-game video (2–5 minutes) that best conveys the philosophical and aesthetic essence of their project.
Submission requirements
The final project must include:
• A vertical cover in A4 format
• The title of the work, a black tag «Game Graphics», and a white tag «Dark Matter»
• A concept description, including the setting
• Proposed gameplay
• At least five diverse screenshots
• A trailer or gameplay video hosted on Vimeo or Kinescope
• Optional: at least five varied illustrations forming a thematically cohesive series
• Recommended: animated GIFs highlighting particularly striking parts of the project
Evaluation criteria
The jury will evaluate submissions based on two criteria: Concept and Presentation.
Concept considers the depth and clarity of the idea, visual originality, how well the graphics align with gameplay, compositional integrity, and the appropriateness of stylistic choices.
Presentation focuses on the execution and delivery of visuals: quality, quantity, and diversity of assets; scale and detail of game levels; effectiveness of the graphical techniques used; and the clarity and impact of videos and screenshots.
Competition timeline
October 31 — Project submissions open
April 15 — Final deadline
Prizes
1st Place: 50,000 RUB 2nd Place: 30,000 RUB 3rd Place: 20,000 RUB
Interested in participating? We’ve prepared two guides—a text guide and a video guide—showing how to sign up, create a project, and submit it to a competition.
References
Wrathful / Suffocate by Daria Boldyreva
Educational tracks
HSE ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL offers programs in Game Design and Animation and CGI and Visual Effects, with options for bachelor’s, master’s, and continuing education.
With a project-based learning approach, professional portfolio development, experienced instructors, and direct exposure to the creative industries, our graduates go on to become internationally recognized professionals in design, fashion, contemporary art, photography, theater, programming, game design, media, advertising, film, animation, sound art, and visual effects.
Contact us
HSE ART AND DESIGN SCHOOL Moscow, Malaya Pionerskaya st., 12 creativeopen@hsedesign.ru