BAFTA/Jamie Simonds Find out who won at the YGD Awards 2018
The winners of the BAFTA Young Game Designers competition were announced at an inspirational ceremony on Saturday 7 July.
Trapped was the first winner of the day, with Hull-based creators Dalvia & Tiya Dhillon taking the Game Concept (10-14) Award. The game is a retro 2D story about mental illness among teenagers, in which players must guide protagonist Davis through issues of bullying as well as challenging platforming sections.
The Game Concept (15-18) Award was won by Sophia Shepherd, Katrina Shields & Rin Jones from Wimbledon, for their game Tea & Tartlets. A top-down, story-based simulation, Tea & Tartlets sees players running a café and exploring a romance-focused story. Its creators say that the game "aims to represent everyone regardless of sexuality, gender, race and religion."
Harry Thurston from Forest Row took the Game Making (10-14) Award for Maggie, a minimalist puzzle platformer focused around the eponymous red cube. Players must guide Maggie through a series of levels using only her ability to stretch, encountering a number of obstacles and challenges. Incredibly, this is Harry's first game made using Unity.
Super Boson won the Game Making (15-18) Award: Prithvi Kohli's fast-paced action puzzler features dazzling visuals and aims to inspire scientific curiosity amongst younger audiences. Players take control of different subatomic particles, switching between them to overcome different obstacles.
The YGD Mentor Award was presented to Impact Gamers' Adam Syrop, for his inspirational work mentoring young people in Bradford. Adam said: "BAFTA to me represents the best in the arts, so to be considered is mind blowing. I hope people seeing this Game Mentor award will be inspired to invest their time and skills into young people."
All 40 finalists had headed to BAFTA 195 on London's Piccadilly to attend the ceremony and reception, where the shortlisted games were on show. Hosts Aoife Wilson and Julia Hardy were joined by actor Abubakar Salim and presenter Alysia Judge, as well as Ninja Theory's Tameem Antoniades.
Check out the 2018 YGD Awards brochure for more info on the finalists!
