2023 Young Game Designers: 'Game Making' finalists

The 2023 Young BAFTA Game Making Award finalists have been revealed, so get ready to have a play and be inspired.

Finalists in the category for 15-18 years old game makers are; Bird in the Woods, Carrot Slime 2, Escape The Darkness, Gloop Fishing, Gul-p, Lizard: The Game, One Life, Pipes, The Intergalactic Contests of the Speaker, WordPong!

Finalists in the category for 10-14 years old game makers are; Go Home Edd, POLY City Racecourse, Potato Ninjas vs Coconuts 2, QuickBowl, Red Bot, Samurai Turtle, serialbus, Skeletus Bossfight, Swing!, The Lost Soul.

Game Making Award: 15 -18 years old

Bird in the Woods - Arlo Freer (15)

A dilapidated ruin, deep in the forest - where better to hone your archery skills?

You're a bird with a magic bow that allows you to teleport to the location of your arrows. With as little shots as possible, you need to manoeuvre your way through puzzling levels.

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A blue square slime floating in the sky where a carrot perches above a grass block

Carrot Slime 2 - Phoenix Wu (16)

In Carrot Slime 2, you play as a little square slime on a mission to eat as many carrots he can as quickly as possible whilst traversing a perilous terrain.

Carrot Slime 2 features 21 levels, with the last level of the game being a race against a boss. There are powerups like a speed boost, jump boost and a gravity reverser to help you get to the golden carrot at the end of each level the quickest.

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An above view of a character holding a torch in a dark facility

Escape The Darkness - James Schaffer (17) and Harrison Green (16)

Use light to hold back the malevolent darkness and escape the doomed facility alive as the unfortunate security guard in this breathless 2D puzzle game.

The darkness has escaped, a living shadow which envelops all life it touches, each time growing stronger. You have to search the level for clues for door codes, find out what is happening and keep yourself alive with batteries scattered around the facility. You want to escape to survive and care little for the faceless overseer that controls the facility.

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A green slime character fishing on a pixelated pier on an ocean

Gloop Fishing - Tommy Bell (15)

Gloop Fishing is a casual fishing game that you play as a little slime called Gloop.

In Gloop Fishing there are 21 different fish to catch(including 3 larger, harder to catch fish). You can sell or eat fish, progressing horizontally though the map.

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Gul-p - Isabelle Johnston (18)

Cooking game mixed with frantic seagull defence.

You are a business owner of a hotdog stand at a local fair but today flocks of seagulls are plotting to steal your produce, causing you to lose lots of money... Whilst trying to continue serving customers their hotdogs, you must defend your stand from the seagulls with ketchup!

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A lizard king and colourful pixelated lizard servants

Lizard: The Game - Benjie Elston (16)

Lizard: The Game is a fast-paced action platformer surrounding the life of a poor little lizard.

Your goal is to escape the evil clutches of the Lizard King and his thousands of lizard servants, and to put as much distance as possible between you and the prison tower you find yourself in at the start of the game.

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A blue square hovering around a purple swirl and multiple red triangles

One Life - Ethan Dale (15)

You play as a Square who jumps infinitely, hopping from one platform to the next while forever dodging dangerous obstacles that try to extinguish your one and only life.

You’re a Square with one objective: race to the finish line without dying! Along the way you must dodge obstacles and protect your one life. Anything can and will kill you. Using the objects around you, your challenge is to traverse each level and survive.

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A black character moving through a pipe where orange lights are activated and enemies line the floor

Pipes - Humzah Awais (17)

Traverse the land and the pipe to avoid the corruption, while also trying to survive against the mutated moles and ruthless sentries.

You are a player who is able to move in and out of a big pipe going through the ground, which allows you to avoid the sentry enemies who attack you when you enter their light sensors, although the tunnel isn't always accessible since it is infested with creatures called the moles.

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The Intergalactic Contests Of The Speaker - George White (18)

A replayable, galaxy trotting, colourful, sports game with rogue like elements and unique characters.

The player takes part in the speaker's intergalactic contests, a five-round contest where each round takes place on a new planet and all teams gain access to new items each round as well. The rounds themselves consist of each team simply trying to get the ball to the opposing team's side.

Three stages of a two player game of wordpong.

WordPong! - Dhruv Kale (16)

A fast, competitive online two-player word game, where the two players compete against each other in various game modes!

Two players connect with each other over the internet, and can choose between game modes including: Car racing - where players enter words similar to the question word as fast as they can to go the furthest and finish first, but if you exceed 10 seconds, your car does not move ahead.

Game Making Award: 10-14 years old

Go Home Edd written in front of a blue sky. Two trees and a fence is separated by a house

Go Home Edd - Elliot James Pace (14)

Go Home Edd is a 2d time travelling puzzle platformer.

Go Home Edd is about a bored 10 year old boy called Edd. One day, he finds himself playing in his back garden and discovers a little door in a tree and within moments he is transported to an exciting time travelling adventure solving puzzles, meeting new characters and learning about historical moments in time, before he can get home in time for tea.

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A racing track weaving through a city with brick buildings. A white car is parked next to a ramp

POLY City Racecourse - Felix Myrie (13)

A high-octane, high-speed, low-poly 3D racing game set in an awesome city.

Players can race against the clock in 8 unique levels, with jumps, turns and high speeds, and compare their scores in a leader board with other players online. The levels get progressively more difficult, and the game can be controlled by keyboard and mouse or game controller.

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Potato shaped ninja and five coconut characters

Potato Ninjas vs Coconuts 2 - Julian Tanca (14)

An ambitious young potato ventures into the beaches of the wilderness: with little ammunition and energy, the samurai seeks to plunder the booty of the many coconuts that dwell there.

Every level is a fierce battle for control over the bustling beach. No coconuts were harmed in the making of this.

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A bowling alley with ramps and obstacles in the lanes

QuickBowl - Edward Hesketh (13)

"Fast-paced bowling mixed with crazy golf, with randomly-generated quick and satisfying obstacles for endless possibilities".

In QuickBowl, the player uses touch controls to fire a bowling ball at pins, while avoiding various obstacles and collecting powerups. The game randomly generates different scenarios by mixing and matching pre-made objects and mechanics, allowing for the game to continue for as long as the timer allows.

A red robot character with the text red bot written above in grey

Red Bot - Rufus Perkins (11)

A fun, exciting, addictive game with beautiful graphics and mind-blowingly awesome features, such as a shop, containing many splendid skins, an incredibly satisfying button mechanism which is almost impossible to stop fiddling with and more!

The player will follow your mouse's x position. Jump from platform to platform, but don't fall! There are also missiles coming down at you. However, a few seconds before it fires, a warning sign appears at the place that the projectile will be coming from. Buy characters in the shop and... ENJOY!!!

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A platformer game with a samurai turtle character

Samurai Turtle - Harry Poole (12)

A challenging 2D platformer game where you collect coins as a samurai turtle whilst outwitting the enemies.

You play as a samurai turtle who parkours through different levels, slowly introducing more mechanics through level progression. Beware of the enemies that get in your way, don’t lose your lives or it’s game over!

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serialbus - Alex Phillips (13)

You are trapped inside a computer and there is only one way out.

The character must explore the circuitry of a computer they are trapped inside of and solve puzzles to work through the computer to a way out.

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A black and white image of a giant flying skeleton and little minion characters on a floor of bricks

Skeletus Bossfight - Roman Gamaury (14)

You must defeat a giant flying skeleton head who summons spikes, minions and lasers to try and stop you.

Fight a skeleton boss by throwing rocks at it and killing its minions. The boss goes through a few different phases and progressively gets more difficult.

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A swinging light ball with red and green sphere obstacles

Swing! - Elliott McCombie (14)

You must swing through an obstacle course with a rope while avoiding the dangers.

You have to swing through and obstacle course with a rope while avoiding the danger and you can collect points by touching the green orbs.

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A pixelated village with a ghost and a knight

The Lost Soul - Shuaib Magamedov (14)

A fun RPG game that involves strategy and skill.

You are a knight who is in a village. You do activities set out by the villagers to gain coins before entering the dungeon. In the dungeon are ghosts that spawn every 10 seconds in three spawn points. You must find the entrance to the room of the lost soul and can use chests along the way to increase your speed for five seconds, escaping the ghosts. However, the chests do cost five coins.

Feeling inspired?

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