2025 Young Game Designers: ‘Game Concept’ Finalists

A Japanese learning game, where you walk through quaint Japanese towns to large cities like Tokyo or Osaka and learn words such as すし (sushi). A 2D side scroller, where you interact with objects and the Japanese words pop up above your head! The player’s job is to learn as much Japanese as possible to fill in the word book that the sushi shop owner "Mr Sushimii" has given you. Each level introduces harder vocabulary and rewards players with new sushi to try. The game ends in a unique boss fight against The Landlord—convince him in Japanese not to sell the sushi shop! With almost kid-drawn art and funny characters, the game makes language learning accessible and fun for all ages.

A unique 3D puzzle-adventure platformer where players sculpt real-world clay models, scan them with the companion app, and watch as AI animates their creations into fully playable characters. It blends hands-on tactile creativity with digital gameplay in an open-world adventure designed especially for pre-teens. Set on the tropical island of Sculpterra, players explore to rescue the Mini Clays—who play a key role in problem-solving, exploration, and survival in Clay-Verse and ultimately help you defeat the villain, Doughhawk. With intuitive controls, no violence, and increasing difficulty, Clay-Verse encourages creativity, exploration, and hands-on interaction. A built-in community hub lets players share and download creations, while weekly challenges promote creativity and collaboration in this safe, playful, and imaginative open-world adventure.

A new and revolutionary take on 2D pixel RPGs where you ARE the cursor. After being thrown out of a destroyed laptop, your quest is to navigate through files and return the sacred essay to the boss. Your companions are apps, they sell you abilities, new cursors and upgrades to help you on your quest. Unlock new cursors like the magnifier (reads small text) or boxing glove cursor (packs a punch) to progress. Along the way through the laptop's files, you will solve puzzles and fight viruses, once you discover the internet, the end is in sight. All levels are multiple different files, however, the art stays true to the pixel art style as do the characters and enemies.

A fast-paced, chaotic cooking-based co-op game in which 1-4 players take control of the limbs of Aran, a down on his luck spider chef just trying to make ends meet, to try to keep their restaurant in New Bug City afloat and their customers happy! Aran has 30 in-game days to pay off loan sharks, or he will be evicted and his dream will be shattered! Each day, players choose recipes, cook bug-themed dishes like “gnatchos,” serve quirky insect customers, and balance speed with quality to earn money. Upgrades, like sharper knives or faster movement, help, but drain your budget. The cartoonish art style, unique bug-world aesthetic, and increasing difficulty make it a chaotic, strategic challenge.

A hack and slash dungeon crawler with an anti-hero twist, you play as Chester, a living chest and mimic. Flipping the traditional dungeon story, your goal is to defeat the heroes that have entered the dungeon looking for coin and glory, selfishly looting whatever they find in their path. They progress in difficulty, such as from Mage to Sorcerer to Necromancer to Archmage and as you progress, you gain new abilities and upgrade through a skill tree using class coins that will help you with each type of enemy. A unique mechanic of turning into a chest when idle, introduces tactical ambush opportunities, rewarding patience and positioning alongside fast combat. Colourful pixel art and humorous storytelling add charm and heart.

A whimsical 2D exploration platformer set on a little moon, where a tiny astronaut crash-lands with only a paintbrush. Players explore the open world to discover air pockets, and unlock new abilities like ink-boats or hovering. Using ink, they draw objects to solve puzzles and overcome challenges; these in turn reward the player with upgrades, such as extra ink or oxygen storage and new tools. The harder the challenge, with complex puzzles or bosses, the more powerful the abilities. The world is hand-painted in watery greyscale ink, the astronaut having a fishbowl looking helmet and trusty paintbrush on their back. Players can't jump unless using trampolines and the direction of gravity varies around the circular map encouraging creative navigation and thoughtful exploration.

An underwater adventure, puzzle game where Spongy, a brave sponge, is on a mission to restore the Great Coral and revive marine life after a fierce storm. Swept away from his coral kingdom, Spongy must explore amazing underwater realms like kelp forests, sunken ships, and glowing volcanic vents. He meets helpful sea creatures like Shelldon, a wise old clam and Tilda, a playful sea turtle, as Spongy solves their tricky puzzles, avoids predators, and collects treasures, he gains special powers from friendly ocean creatures, allowing him to grow coral and rebuild his lost kingdom. However, Spongy can’t touch the coral directly, or it will be damaged. Each level reinforces teamwork and caring for marine ecosystems while teaching about climate change’s impact.

A cozy, sun-kissed life sim where you build a home on a floating island you wake upon, slowly uncovering it's a slumbering sea turtle guiding you toward fabled Seashell Bay. Document your journey in a scrapbook, befriend animal travellers, such as a shy jellyfish artist who paints with glowing ink, collect ocean treasures, and craft your dream life. The main goal is to rebuild a community scattered by a great storm. Collect driftwood, build homes, and sketch wildlife while uncovering the stories of former villagers who once lived on your island. The world is vibrant, warm and welcoming with glowing plankton, misty mornings, and playful wildlife, it feels ever-changing, full of wonder, and perfect for exploration.

A game intended to educate younger players about caring for the world and encourage them to take real-world actions for the environment. The EcoBots are robots who have come to Earth on a journey to restore nature, for Earth's environment is in great danger, and you, as an EcoBot with unique abilities —like SproutBot, who plants trees in forests, are needed, in order to save the world. During the game, players solve puzzles and play minigames based on real-life environmental challenges, such as endangered wildlife or polluted oceans, in different biomes (Desert, Forest…), with levels gradually becoming more difficult, as they try to restore the world. Levels begin with dark, gloomy visuals to reflect environmental damage, but as players succeed, vibrant colours return.

A psychological RPG horror storygame where the player wanders a melancholic, post-apocalyptic, futuristic world, in hopes of a purpose; a solivagant in a lonely world filled with zombies, in search of their missing family. To reunite with their family, they have to progress in the main story line, and uncover the truth behind the outbreak. They encounter NPCs which enable alternate routes and side quests. Every map provides a contrast, with the colour palette reflecting the character's emotions and responses to their surroundings; the art style is eerie and poignant, with an emphasis on the blues and reds for juxtaposition. The Undead tackles the concept of personal identity and inadequacy, the comfort of loneliness and individuality.

A 2D puzzle platformer in a world where the world leader disregards science for his own political purposes. Waking in the rubble of a collapsing dimension, without memory of its life before; the BLBO test subject discovers its ability to travel across the growing fracture that divides what was once home. You must help BLBO rediscover its history so it can bring its splitting universe back together. It has four main gameplay rules: a reality-swap teleports you to the other side, only this will change gravity, the player needs to match the colour of an ability to use it, and the camera never cuts. A mind-bending game, BLBO challenges players to question if evil is inherited, or learnt.

Play as the heroine of a book, Elowen Thorne, desperate to be a hero, without having anybody to save. You soon find out you’re in a book that has been ripped apart by the author, Jane Wright, in an effort to create a world without suffering. Piece together the author's life to find the missing pages, that are hidden in important places in the real world. You must travel between your kingdom Iola, and 20th century London, using mirrors. As the pages unlock your own world, you can discover the secrets it hides. Help others and become the hero you were meant to be. You learn about regaining your life after tragedy and helping others to heal.

A bold re-interpretation of chess where you play as Equilibra, an agent of cosmic balance, who has been tasked with restoring equilibrium through a series of boss fights with each piece. Set in an abstract black-and-white dimension, with each boss arena located on a different floating island themed after a chess piece. Each boss has two phases—a black and a white phase—each representing an internal conflict that must be reconciled for them to unify as one. Equilibra uses her powers of balance to absorb energy from the bosses' attacks, switching phases before redirecting the energy between them. The goal is to restore unity instead of just defeating the boss.

A learning game designed to teach the player first aid. Players choose a first aid skill module, like CPR, and progress through two game modes: MedPal’s Training Lab, where skills are taught in three levels (identifying signs, learning correct steps, and a gamified activity), and Lifesaver Mode, where players are put in a simulation which mimics a real word scenario. MedPal is a friendly robot that emerges from a medical kit. MedPal's expressions dynamically change based on gameplay, reacting to the player's progress which remains light-hearted and fun to ensure the player is comfortable playing. Players earn badges and XP, face increasingly complex simulations, and must requalify if they fail. This game develops skills that can be used to save lives!

A burnt-out game designer who has lost her passion for art must journey through three of her unfinished games, writing endings for them to rediscover her lost creativity. The game is set in four areas, the real world; Castlepunk, a medieval metroidvania; The Adventures of 4, an RPG with a Japanese inspired environment; and Untitled which is a white space filled with assets and notes from her younger self. The goal of each level is to fix bugs and finish sections of the games, in turn, Mikka gains closure and understands something new about her passion for game design. Part of the gameplay is breaking the game down into its most fundamental components and manipulating them in unexpected ways.

A puzzle-platformer game where players must use the power of modulo to travel from one side of the level to another. Levels have a variety of obstacles that can be changed by the player to become passable. As levels become more difficult, the player will soon be required to use Modulo to connect different elements together so they control and modulate each other. You play as a little cube, Anna Logue, on a big quest to bring colour back to the world of Synthesizia, changing the elements of the world around you and linking them together in new and unusual ways to traverse strange realms and rescue your friends - and learn how to use a synthesizer!

A game that combines learning mechanisms and an interactive open world space game. It follows the story of a reconnaissance space mission gone wrong, causing you, the player, to find the parts to rebuild your ship and discover the origin of the strange corruption plaguing this solar system... This game is a mixture of Sci-Fi action and mathematics, with each unique planet and the life that inhabits it being inspired in design by different Key Stage 4 mathematics modules, such as Number in Caves and Probability in Casino City. On each planet, the player will learn different modules, until meeting The Professor, an evil overlord who has corrupted the solar system and plans to take you down too!

A horror rhythm game set in a South Korean inspired ghost town. You play as Yohan, a young musician from a wealthy family who wants to rebel from their conformity and runs away in search of a haunted ghost town. He creates his own portable amp and sets off. Once there, he sits down to play bass and discovers that his music can exorcise a strange entity. With this new found knowledge he decides to end the town's misery with his music and find who started it all. Players explore the town, find key items, uncover secrets, and battle enemies by hitting rhythm cues. Rhythm Hell is playable on Sega Mega Drive for sustainability.

A 2D survival horror game set in the 1960s. You play as Test Subject 19, trapped in a government research facility beneath a working hospital. While exploring, 19 uncovers hidden audio logs and notes left behind by Dr. Beau Walker. These clues slowly reveal the unsettling truth behind what happened. Gameplay focuses on exploration, with moments of intense tension. 19 must manage limited resources, hide from imagined monsters, and avoid threats as the environment bends and distorts around him. Chase sequences bring extra pressure, with static and visual glitches reflecting 19’s unravelling mind. With branching paths and multiple endings, there are new pieces of the story offered each time. Reality and illusion blur together, leaving players to question what’s real and what’s not.

A free roam exploration in 3rd person where a child is trying to get downstairs for dinner, but has to traverse through a house warped by their own imagination and overrun by living versions of their toys. The child will find normal household objects amongst the wild jungle surrounded by magical plant life with an art style that is kind of cartoon cell shaded anime aesthetic. Players fight creatures using upgradable swords with inspired fighting mechanics, manage stamina and health via vertical bars resembling fizzy drinks and complete quests for NPCs to gather materials. The story is serious but fairly upbeat, making for a subtle and dark twist towards the true story at the end of the secret ending.