Search For A Star 2024 : Game Design Winners
Looking back at this year’s winners in more detail, we hear what our industry judges thought of the Game Design winners.
A huge thanks to all of the devs who took the time to sit on our judging panels and interview all of the finalists, and a well-earned congratulations to our winners this year!
Search For A Star & Rising Star are our annual gamedev challenges to help students create portfolio work to a professional brief, get direct industry feedback, and get noticed by games studios. You can learn more about the challenges here.
Grads In Games are only able to run Search For A Star due to the support of the games industry and helping graduates into their first roles. We work to support many of these students for months across the challenges, so if you represent a games studio & would like to learn more about any of our SFAS winners, finalists, or Ones To Watch, please get in touch as we’d love to tell you all about them!
Search For A Star 2024
Game Design Winner
Ian O’Flaherty
Brunel University
SFAS Game Design Judging panel
Arthur Parsons, Design Director at 10:10 Games
James Parker, Director at Ground Shatter Games
Mark Hall, Principal Level Designer, Sumo Digital
“We could imagine this game becoming a real project – with a well thought through design and huge future potential – Ian really nailed the brief.“
Ian’s design project showed well-delivered ideas with strong mechanics, and a great overall design methodology, reflected in the final interview with Ian impressing the panel with his approach to design and thinking process behind decisions.
See Ian’s portfolio here: https://ianoflaherty14.wixsite.com/ianoportfolio
Rising Star 2024
Game Design Winner
Jonathon Mayes
Rising Star Game Design Judging panel
Adam Sas-Skowronski, Game Designer at Steel City Interactive
Marine Redon, Producer at Steel City Interactive
“Jonathon had a very thoughtful design and great, well detailed building with the potential to expand to a full game. He also shows a distinct identity and personality in his design work.”
Jonathon reached the finals after impressing the project assessors with a well thought out prototype showing a high level of polish, and similarly impressed the final interview panel with his design knowledge and high potential.
See Jonathon’s portfolio here: https://jonotrewin.github.io/PortfolioWebsite/
