PEN and paper monsters will be transformed into virtual reality characters in a gaming challenge at this month’s Dundee Design Festival.

The Doodle Targets mini-game will begin on paper and end in cutting-edge digital technology.

It sees players design their own characters, which are then scanned to become virtual reality shooting targets in just a few seconds.

Students from Abertay University, a leader in gaming and digital courses, created the challenge in just 40 hours at the Moray Game Jam in Elgin earlier this year.

The team, named Pocket Sized Hands, will showcase the title on Monday as the festival closes.

Team member Gary McCartan said: “It’s great to be a part of Dundee Design Festival and to feel part of the city’s wider creative and design-based community.

“We are looking forward to showing off our game and to catching a look at the work of other designers and makers.”

Starting on Thursday, the festival is based at West Ward Works, a former jute mill, and includes workshops, talks, exhibitions and tours.

Themed around the “factory floor”, the programme explores links between design and production and includes an “enormous” live concert by the Singer Machine Choir, which will see vocalists gathered from around the area perform the mechanical sounds of factories past.

Their voices will be accompanied by the “playing” of inkjet printers, with acclaimed performer Sheena Wellington advising the project.

Abertay lecturer Lynn Parker of the Division of Games and Arts will co-deliver a gameplay workshop as part of a build-up event tomorrow.

The full-day session will see participants produce interactive “game-like” experiences in real space, with the results showcased at Dundee Rep on Sunday.