Next week our Search For A Star and Sumo Digital Rising Star Finalists will be facing our expert industry judges in the final stage of the challenges!

This is the culmination of months of work across the 10th anniversary of Search For A Star, with students creating & publishing over 200 gamedev projects across programming, environment art, character art, animation and VFX!

After completing their projects (and C++ tests for the coders), the 5 leading students in each category have now been selected to interview with a panel of industry experts. Our industry judges will talk to the finalists about their gamedev knowledge, technical skills, portfolios, and their ambitions for their future career in games, before deciding on each exemplary category winner for 2020.

It’s a great experience for the students, with each of the panel interviews modeled on exactly the type of interview style and questions that graduates can expect to encounter when they take their first steps into their game industry career.

The results of this year’s Search For A Star & Sumo Digital Rising Star challenges will be shown live on Monday 27th April at 6pm at https://www.twitch.tv/gradsingames

The judging process is a huge task spread out over a full week this year, and we’d like to thank everyone on our judging panels for sharing their time and expertise to help the next generation of the games industry.

Our judging panels for Search For A Star & Sumo Digital Rising Star 2020 :

Search For A Star Environment Art

Dominic Hood. Head of Art, Sumo Digital
Anthony O’Donnell. Associate Art Director, Firesprite
Martyn Taylor. Artist, TT Odyssey
Rachel Weston. Spotlight Lead / Art Director, Unity
Rebecca Wright. Graduate Recruiter, Aardvark Swift

Sumo Digital Rising Star Environment Art

Claire McClaughry. Studio Art Director, Well Played Games
Ben Cottage. Lead Environment Artist, Splash Damage
John Griffiths. Lead Artist, Fabrik Games
Jasmin Ali. Recruitment Consultant, Aardvark Swift

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Search For A Star Games VFX

Conrad Hughes. Senior VFX Artist, nDreams
Jeff Johnson. Lead VFX Artist, Splash Damage
Luis Barros. Lead Lighting/VFX Artist, Ubisoft Reflections
Tom Ash. Graduate Recruiter, Aardvark Swift

Sumo Digital Rising Star Games VFX

Pete Clarke. Lead Visual FX Artist, Sumo Digital
Kristen Griffin. Senior Technical Artist
Rebecca Wright. Graduate Recruiter, Aardvark Swift

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Search For A Star Games Programming

Lizi Attwood. Technical Director, Furious Bee
Ashley Bennett. Technical Director, Sumo Digital
Andy Greensmith. Technical Director, Red Kite Games
Tim Page. Technical Director, Well Played Games
Tom Ash. Graduate Recruiter, Aardvark Swift

Sumo Digital Rising Star Games Programming

Julian Adams. Technical Director, TT Odyssey
Hollie Brown. UI Programmer, Sumo Digital
Tom Rab. Lead Programmer, Fortitude Games
Kirsten White. Recruitment Consultant, Aardvark Swift

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Search For A Star Character Art

Marcus Whinney. Senior Character Artist, nDreams
Steve Wilding. Art Director/Lighting Artist, TT Odyssey
Jon Berry. Lead Character Artist, Sumo Digital
Max Stuart. Senior Recruiter, Aardvark Swift

Sumo Digital Rising Star Character Art

Mike Ollerton. Character Artist, Sumo Digital
Joe Harford. CEO, Airship Images
Chris Bruin. Senior Character Artist, Cubic Motion
Rebecca Wright. Graduate Recruiter, Aardvark Swift

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Search For A Star / Sumo Digital Rising Star Game Animation

Diana Donado. Head of Animation, Rebellion
Ian Shepherd. 3D Animator, TT Games
Gary Edwards. Principal Animator, nDreams
Dan Hawkins. Recruitment Consultant, Aardvark Swift

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Thank you once again to our judging teams, and good luck to all of the finalists taking part this year!

Catch the results on Monday 27th April at 6pm : https://www.twitch.tv/gradsingames