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When switching from PowerPoint to a live build something goes awry, and the big screen in the Darwin Room suddenly fills with endlessly unspooling code. "Gah! This always happens," says the game designer handling the presentation, before tapping at his keyboard and muttering darkly.For a minute, I doubt his world-weary demeanour. This always happens? The designer looks about 12. Then I cast a quick glance around the audience gathered here and realise he's just one boy genius amongst many boy - and girl - geniuses. Maybe when you're running with these crowds, this sort of thing really does always happen.
We might be gathered in the Darwin Room here at the Wellcome Trust's London offices, but we're honouring another scientific legend today: Gregor Mendel, the Augustinian friar who once looked at some peas very closely (as we all do from time to time) and started to unravel the mysteries of genetic inheritance (as most of us don't). The reason that these game designers are involved - these student game designers, in fact - is that Mendelian inheritance: genetics and genomics is the theme for this year's Make Something Unreal competition. How unshakingly populist.
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