Graduate teams from the length and breadth of the country have been awarded grants by the UK Games Fund with the aim of taking their video games business to the next level.
The annual Tranzfuser competition ran across ten regions of the UK. Each of the eighteen teams used a £5,000 prize to develop a game to showcase at the prestigious EGX video games festival in Birmingham, attended by over 75,000 gamers. During the show, a team of industry judges shortlisted the best games to compete for grants from £10,000 to £25,000 from the UK Games Fund to develop commercial prototypes. Tranzfuser is the only graduate games competition that feeds directly to an industry grant fund.
The grant awards were confirmed today after the shortlisted teams travelled to Edinburgh to pitch to the UK Games Fund.
The project is funded as part of the £4m UK Government programme of games development funding and talent development announced last year, run by UK Games Talent and Finance Community Interest Company (UKGTF).
Matt Hancock, Minister of State for Digital and Culture, said:
“Our video games industry is world-renowned, and this fund will help start up games developers develop their ideas and attract private investment. The Government’s UK Games fund is now bridging that gap and through its Tranzfuser competition, talented graduates are realising their dreams and turning them into a reality for us all to enjoy.”
Six of the eighteen teams secured UK Games Fund grants. The successful teams are Curvish and Mountain Walrus both from Scotland, Cold Sun Studios and Astro Manatee from South Yorkshire, Miracle Tea Studios from South East England and Shiny Happy People from London.
Paul Durrant, UKGTF’s founder, said:
“The level of competition for these awards was extremely high. The funded teams have met the same standard as established companies pitching in to the UK Games Fund. This is a tremendous achievement for teams that have been formed by recent graduates.”