Fittingly held in Cardiff Bay’s science centre Techniquest, the BAFTA Cymru Games Awards nominations party gathered together some of the key figures in Wales’ emerging games industry. With huge developments in the amounts of developers, and the calibre of games being produced, it’s hard not to feel a sense of enormous potential when playing the games, and seeing the enthusiasm on the developers’ faces.
On arrival to the nominations party, some of the nominated games had been laid out to play, among them Wales Interactive’s Best Game Award nominated Soul Axiom, an innovative puzzler where you manipulate the world around you. Imagine something like BioShock, but less terrifying. MD David Banner said: “We ourselves are a proud Welsh games developer who have been fortunate enough to fly the flag for Wales by demo-ing Soul Axiom at some of the world’s biggest gaming events. The game has been featured by the likes of Nintendo, Playstation and Xbox at GDC San Francisco, Rezzed London and the Tokyo Games Show. This latest nomination is another positive accolade in our ambition to establish Wales on the global game industry map.”
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Other nominees for this award were Rantmedia’s TV Sports Soccer, an endless arcade football game for the TV and mobile (we reviewed it here), and Thud Media and Toots Enterprises Toot’s Race, a bright and colourful children’s game. Squarehead Studios had been nominated for Star Ghost, a game for the Wii U. Simple to play and like a mix between R Type and Flappy Bird, it was one of the strongest games to have come out of Wales recently, and one of the best games on display. Squarehead director, Rhys Lewis said: “As a one-man studio, building awareness in the marketplace can be a challenging prospect. Nominations such as this help to shine a much needed spotlight on the studio and its games.”
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The full list of nominees is below:
NOMINATIONS
Best Game Award, Sponsored by Games Dev at Wrexham Glyndŵr University
WALES INTERACTIVE for Soul Axiom
Thud Media / Toots Enterprises Ltd for Toot’s Race
RANTMEDIA for TV Sports Soccer
Artistic Achievement Commendation, sponsored by Ubisoft
Thud Media / Pesky Productions Ltd for Boj Smoothies
Squarehead Studios Ltd for Star Ghost
CUBE KIDS for Teletubbies
Technical Achievement Commendation, sponsored by SEGA
BBC Cymru/BBC Digital Creativity/Aardman Animations for Doctor Who Game Maker
Tell Player Limited/Agatha christie limited for Mr Quin
Cube Kids for Teletubbies
Game Play Design Commendation
Thud Media / Pesky Productions Ltd for Boj Smoothies
Squarehead Studios Ltd for Star Ghost
Cube Kids for Teletubbies
Sound & Music Commendation, sponsored by Spiros
Thud Media / Pesky Productions Ltd for Boj Smoothies
BBC Cymru Wales, BBC Digital Creativity, Aardman Animations for Doctor Who Game Maker
Cube Kids for Teletubbies
The international video game industry was estimated to be worth US$91.5 billion last year, twice that of the revenue of the international film industry in 2013, so it’s exciting to see this kind of industry starting to take off in Wales, and of course, fingers are crossed for the future. While only five companies in total had been nominated for awards, there are many games and technology companies across the country refusing to let Wales be left out of a rapidly developing industry. The industry is young, the talent is there, and the sense of optimism is strong.
words LUKE OWAIN BOULT