Being a journalist isn’t all hard work as earlier this week, I was invited to Buckinghamshire for the launch of a new online wheelchair basketball game designed by staff and students on the Creative and Media Diploma at Chalfonts Community College, the main physical disability resource school for South Bucks.

Moreover, the event was held at the legendary Pinewood Studios, the major British film studio where the majority of the James Bond films have been shot.

Other such blockbusters to have graced Pinewood include: The Shining, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Mission: Impossible, The Bourne Ultimatum and, one of my all time favourite films, The Dark Knight.

It was therefore with a great sense of awe that I drove through the impressive Pinewood Studio gates where I spent around 10 minutes looking at the colossal 007 stage before I remembered the reason I had actually been invited to the venue.

The launch event took place in an impressive room towards the back of Pinewood Studios and as I strolled in, I joined a group of various other guests where we were informed about how the revolutionary game titled: "Wheels of Glory" had been developed by Chalfonts College through a project called Gaming!

Gaming! is one of six Accentuate projects being delivered by Create Compete Collaborate (CCC) and "Wheels of Glory" became a reality after it was decided that an online game should be developed to be played by young people around the world which would raise awareness of the Paralympic Games and the story of Stoke Mandeville Stadium, the birth place of the Paralympic Movement.

Staff and students at Chalfonts College worked alongside professional games designer Dr Tom Scutt who was involved in designing cult computer game Tomb Raider.

As part of their research, students visited Stoke Mandeville Stadium and played wheelchair basketball with members of the British Paralympic Team.

The results are undoubtedly impressive as the game is extremely fun, if a little difficult to get the hang of.

In the game, while stationed in your wheelchair, you must collect coloured gems around the basketball court in order to keep up your levels of "Excellence, Determination and Inspiration".

You must grab the medals when they appear and should you achieve this feat, you are rewarded with an interesting fact about the Paralympics. You must also avoid being hit by flying basketballs and opponents as you progress through the levels.

You are able to play on your own or against other users from around the world.



Needless to say, I was particularly poor at the game when I had my first chance to have a go at it but since having a few more attempts at it on my laptop, I have steadily improved.

During the launch event, I managed to catch up with Dr Scutt who told me he had enjoyed working on such a worthwhile project that educates about the Paralympic Movement following his spell in helping to designed Tomb Raider where the main objective is to kill your enemy in the most brutal and efficient way possible.

"It was great working on something as important as the Paralympic Movement," he told me. "Having worked on games like Tomb Raider that have a bad moral stance; it was nice to be doing something that has some good behind it. It was a very difficult brief though because doing something on the story of the Paralympics that is both educational and informative but fun at the same time is very hard.

"Usually games like that are very dull but we have managed to create something enjoyable here and fun for kids to play so that is great."

Greg Hodgson, the senior leader at Chalftons Community College and Head of Art and Design, added that the game is one of the most important projects he has ever worked on.

"This is an exciting way to address the issue of disability sport and really get people involved in the story of the Paralympic Games and Stoke Mandeville which is actually as important as the development of the game itself," he said.

"It wasn’t just the students who learnt more about people with a disability, but the staff as well, and that has been one of the great things about this project.

"We are delighted with the end product and how good the game looks and that is the reason why we want it to continue this module and hopefully inspire other colleges to do the same."

Anyway, after becoming something of a veteran of the game, I have managed to reach level seven which is titled "Excellence".

There are ten levels in total and see if you can beat my score by playing the game here.