We’ve had another fantastic year for Search For A Star, with 225 games projects created by students from across the UK and Europe. We’re now reaching the final stage of the challenges, and are pleased to reveal our finalists for 2021!

These students have shown high level skills and created exceptional projects over the course of a few weeks, across programming, art, animation and VFX. Many of the students in this list will undoubtedly become future stars of the games industry and we’re eager to help them on that journey.

Later this month, they will all be invited to interview with a panel of games industry professionals, discussing their projects, their skills and their ambitions for the future. The winners of this year’s Search For A Star & d3t Rising Star will then be revealed on the 1st April in a special live presentation as part of Games Careers Week.

We’d like to extend a massive thanks to everyone who has helped these students get this far, including our partners at Aardvark Swift, d3t, Sumo Digital, nDreams, Frontier Developments, NaturalMotion Games, DPS Games, DS Dambuster Studios, Airship Images, Firesprite, Red Kite Games, Tonic Games Group & Steel City Interactive for their support throughout.

Our development teams have been invaluable in the process, and we thank the code test team from Sumo Digital, d3t & DPS Games, and our game project developers Lizi Attwood of Furious Bee and Greg Booker of DPS Games. We also couldn’t have done it without the hard work of our assessment team, with some very appreciated additional support from d3t & Sumo Digital, in reviewing all of the projects received.

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Search For A Star 2021

Students graduating from university in 2021.

d3t Rising Star 2021

Undergraduate & college-level students, graduating 2022 or later.

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The Finalists

Games Programming

Games VFX

Games Animation

Environment Art

Character Art

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Games Programming Finalists 2021

Congratulations to Joshua Pritchard of the University of Huddersfield & Sascha Brunner of the University of Central Lancashire who also both qualified as finalists for Search For A Star 2021

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Games VFX Finalists 2021

(combined category, both Search For A Star & d3t Rising Star)

Anouk Donkers

Howest DAE

Laura Higgins

Escape Studios

Sam Mayson

University of Hertfordshire

Xaver Rauscher

Abertay University

Elie Van Ravels

Howest DAE

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Games Animation Finalists 2021

(combined category, both Search For A Star & d3t Rising Star)

Iva Kasapova

University of the Arts London

Amir Mansaray

Staffordshire University

Alannah Meek

University of South Wales

Sankalp Sharma

Staffordshire University

William Sheen

Staffordshire University

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Environment Art Finalists 2021

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Character Art Finalists 2021

Congratulations to everyone who has made it to the final stage of the challenge. Reaching this point is an exceptional achievement and one to be very proud of!

Join us on the 1st April as we reveal the winners of this year’s Search For A Star & d3t Rising Star student gamedev challenges!