Winners announced for first-ever Scottish Games Awards

• ION LANDS’ CloudPunk lead the charge with three wins

• David Jones, Founder of DMA Design wins the Lifetime Achievement award

The winners of the first-ever Scottish Games Awards have been announced following a gala ceremony which took place last night [Thursday, 27th of October]. The inaugural awards ceremony took place at Malmaison, Dundee and was the climax of Scottish Games Week, which saw events take place all over the country in a bid to showcase games as Scotland’s secret weapon in the tech sector.

Celebrating the very best of the games industry across Scotland, the winners include Dundee studio Team Terrible whose title ‘The Baby In Yellow’ was crowned Best Small-Budget Game, Aberdeenshire’s Brilliant Skies Ltd who won the Technical Achievement award, and BAFTA-winning Amicable Animal who have now lifted the Audio trophy for its work on SOLAS 128. With a Glasgow-based lead writer and artists from Edinburgh, ION LANDS’ epic Cloudpunk won three titles-  Art and Animation, Creativity and Best Large-Budget Game, while Dundonian games industry veteran David Jones won the Lifetime Achievement award.

The Scottish Games Awards winners in full are:

Art and Animation

• Cloudpunk (ION LANDS)

Audio

• SOLAS 128 (Amicable Animal)

Best Educational Programme

• Dundee & Angus College: HN Games Development

Best Educator

• Dr Lynn Love

Best Large-Budget Game

• Cloudpunk (ION LANDS)

Best Small-Budget Game

• The Baby in Yellow (Team Terrible)

Creativity

• Cloudpunk (ION LANDS)

Diversity Champion

• Tanya Laird

Lifetime Achievement

• David Jones

Stewart Gilray Award (Community Spirit)

• Colin MacDonald

Technical Achievement

• From the Depths (Brilliant Skies Ltd.)

Tools and Technology

• Dislectek

Chaired by renowned journalist and author Chris Scullion, the award winners were selected by a jury of games industry experts with a deep knowledge of the sector, including:

• Brian Baird: Technical Director at Bethesda Games Studios Austin

• Joe Donnelly: Feature Writer at GamesRadar+

• Alisdair Gunn: Director at Glasgow City Innovation District

• Steven Hamill: COO at Scottish Edge

• Keza MacDonald: Video Games Editor at The Guardian

• Jim Trinca: Games journalist and video producer

• Jo Twist: CEO of UKIE

Chris Scullion, journalist and author of The NES Encyclopaedia said: “It’s been a huge honour to chair the judging panel for the inaugural Scottish Games Awards. The quality of the nominees is a perfect indicator of the enormous degree of talent that can be found in the Scottish games industry, and I’m looking forward to the awards (and Scottish Games Week as a whole) acting as a catalyst to help the industry grow from strength to strength.”

Angus Robertson, Culture Secretary, said: “Scotland has a world class reputation for games development as the winners of the first Scottish Games Awards have clearly demonstrated.

“The focus this week on the dynamism of the games sector and its growth potential shows the important role the industry has in supporting our economy. The technology and creativity that drives the sector has also brought benefits to other key areas such as education, healthcare, energy and financial services.”

Brian Baglow, Director of Scottish Games Week and Founder of the Scottish Games Network said: “The level of creativity and technical expertise across Scotland is outstanding, as is the passion, enthusiasm and commitment that we see from so many people across the whole games ecosystem. Today we are celebrating those achievements and turning the spotlight on the individuals, organisations and games that make Scotland’s games community such a vibrant and fun place to be.

“As the culmination of Scottish Games Week, these awards are a stake in the ground which proclaim that games are important, that we have a significant role to play in Scotland’s future and that we are going to be a far larger, louder and more prominent part of Scotland’s digital future.”

The Scottish Games Awards concluded Scottish Games Week, an expertly curated week of events across Scotland, with events focussing on onboarding the uninitiated, bringing together educational institutions and the games ecosystem.

Scottish Games Week is being delivered by the Scottish Games Network and is supported by the Scottish Government’s Ecosystem Fund, delivered as part of its Scottish Technology Ecosystem Review (STER) programme. Scottish Games Week is sponsored by 4J Studios, Blackadders LLP, Johnston Carmichael, YAHAHA, Aream and Co, Escape Technology, 4Players, NLAE and The SQA. Scottish Games Week is supported by partners Barclays Eagle Labs, Barclays Games & Esports Team, CodeBase, Dimoso, GT Omega, Digital Xtra Fund and Citizen Ticket.