A competition has been launched to encourage more women to enter the male-dominated world of computer game design.

Tomb raider Lara Croft has become the biggest icon in computer gaming - but elsewhere in the industry women are failing to pack a punch.

Now the Game Girl Design Competition is challenging female student designers to create games to industry standards.

The scheme is a joint venture between Wired Sussex, the Learning and Skills Council and City College Brighton and Hove.

It aims to increase the number of women in the gaming industry and will offer winners a work placement at Brighton-based Babel Interactive Media.

Second-year students on the City College's Higher National Diploma (HND) in multimedia will work in teams to design a computer game.

They will also carry out research on female gamers and the role of female characters in existing games.

Emily Aitken, Wired Sussex executive director, said: "We found that although there is a high percentage of women gamers, this not reflected in the number of females actually working in the industry, which remains low.

"Game Girl aims to address this issue and improve levels of gaming design skills among women in Sussex.

"If the pilot proves to be successful, we will look at how it can be launched nationwide in schools and colleges next year."

Teams will work to a standard game template used by professionals in the industry and present their final design to an expert panel later this month.

All teams must be single sex and individuals will be judged on their presentation skills and interaction within the group as well as their final design.

Rona Innes, lecturer in multimedia at City College, said: "It's a great opportunity for students to develop self-management and critical skills, which will prepare them for working in the gaming industry.

"Everybody involved is enthusiastic about the project, and we've all given up a lot of time to develop the scheme.

"We're all keen to see what the students come up with in response to the brief."

Wednesday November 12, 2003