Search For A Star & Rising Star
Since our first event in 2010, we’ve been getting together every year with studios and leading professionals across the games industry to run our Search for a Star game development challenges, open to students across the UK and Europe.
Search for a Star & its companion challenge, Rising Star, are designed alongside leading studios and game developers to simulate aspects of games industry recruitment. Programming, 3D art, animation and VFX students are invited to show their skills & build their portfolio, creating technical game projects and polished game-ready assets — exactly what studios want to see examples of from graduate applicants.
Students can receive feedback on their development projects from games professionals, with high achievers invited to take part in an interview with industry leaders at our annual Finals Day & student conference.
Registration for the 2024 challenges will open in October 2023
Our core gamedev challenge.
Open to programming, 3D art, animation and VFX students in their final year or on Masters courses.
Challenges include a game/asset development project and a skills assessment.
Leading students will be invited to a final interview with industry leaders.
Prize packages can include guaranteed job interviews + hardware, software, games and merch from our partners.


Our companion gamedev challenge.
Open to programming, 3D art, animation and VFX undergraduate students not yet in their final year of study.
Challenges are the same as Search For A Star, but are assessed as a separate group.
Leading students will be invited to a final interview with industry leaders.
Prize packages can include guaranteed internship interviews + hardware, software, games and merch from our partners.