How to Watch the BAFTA Young Game Designers (YGD) Competition
Following the success of last year and in the interest of accessibility, the winners of this year’s BAFTA Young Game Designers competition will be announced in a pre-produced digital show. The BAFTA YGD Ceremony will be streamed on BAFTA’s Kids & Teens YouTube channel, with highlights and clips from the show available to watch on Twitter (@BAFTAGames) and LinkedIn. Tune in tonight, Thursday 30 June at 5pm for the digital ceremony.
The ceremony will be hosted by multi-award nominated actor, comedian and presenter Inel Tomlinson, whose TV and game credits include Horrible Histories on BBC, Love Island’s Lloyd the Lovebird, EA’s Grid Legends and The Solitaire Conspiracy. Also featured in the event will be voiceover actress Anjali Bhimani (Overwatch, Apex Legends), Jess Hider (Senior Designer at Rare), and Jane Perry, recipient of the Best Performance in a Lead Role award at the 2022 BAFTA Games Awards, among a plethora of other key industry figures, YGD alumni, and this year’s judges, including BAFTA Games Committee Chair Dr. Jo Twist OBE.
As well as announcing the winners in each of the categories (Game Concept 10-14, Game Concept 15-18, Game Making 10-14, Game Making 15-18), whose game will be featured in the prestigious Power UP exhibition at Manchester’s Science and Industry Museum, the ceremony will focus on the meaningful and pertinent themes depicted across this year’s 40 finalist entries. These include mental health and anxiety, climate change, and computer safety.
BAFTA YGD will host a public open day at BAFTA 195 Piccadilly on 10 July. Hosted by gaming journalist and presenter Shay Thompson, it will feature the finalists’ entries and sessions from official YGD partners focussing on the creative process of games; storytelling and social impact. Sessions include Creating in Dreams with Catherine Woolley (Senior Designer at Media Molecule) and Dan Clark (MindJam), Sustainability Initiatives in Game from Ubisoft, Oxventure Dungeons and Dragons Live (Wizards of the Coast), Behind the Scenes of Game Development with Tt Games and Behind the Scenes of The Green Planet AR Experience. The full list of sessions and timings is available at events@bafta.org. BSL interpretation will be available for all sessions.
Official Partners to BAFTA Young Game Designers include: Creative Assembly, Criterion Games, Epic Games, PlayStation, Tencent Games, Ubisoft, Warner Bros. Games and Wizards of the Coast. Further information can be found here.