Screen Australia has today revealed the latest emerging and established recipients of funding, totalling over $1.3 million. The Games Production Fund, Emerging Gamemakers Fund, ALT: Games Festival and the Future Leaders Delegation recipients for the latest round have all been announced. It’s an incredible lineup of games, and while they still might be in development, it’s exciting to glimpse the games coming in the future.
Amongst the announcements, a whopping 23 games have been supported with vital funding. The funding not only allows games to get made but also allows Australian game developers to upskill and build resilient studios. Screen Australia’s support is vital, given the current woes the industry is facing.
The newly appointed Screen Australia Head of Games, Joey Egger, said, “We’re thrilled that such an exciting mix of local titles and talent are being celebrated and supported by this investment. From intimate stories to challenging puzzlers, these games showcase our diversity, unique culture and game design expertise, and really demonstrates why we continue to excel on the world stage.”
Games Production Fund
Designed to support games in reaching development milestones such as release or working on a demo or even building a vertical slice, the Game Production Fund supports local studios with a grant of up to $100,000.
ROB & ROLL
Studio – Devil Juice Studios
A tight, dice rolling tactics game where a team of mischievous goblins pushes their luck to steal powerful relics for a mysterious wizard.
SNOW CONE
Studio – Hungry Sky Pty Ltd
A puzzle game about rolling icy treats and cleaning up the streets.
MANAGEMENT IN SPACE
Studio – Silver Stitch Productions Pty Ltd
Build your space station, then defend, profit, die, and repeat until the universe collapses.
NULLSTAR: SOLUS
Studio – Smash Attack Studios
Fly through a world at its end, take on 80 different levels as a solitary scav drone, and collect the remnants of a fallen city’s nullstar. Navigate a megastructure filled with traps and guardians of a past age, the ruins of a civilization where not all is as it might seem.
THESE STARLESS SKIES
Studio – Wayward Astronaut Pty Ltd
In These Starless Skies, a discordant team of planetary scientists must confront their personal demons and unravel the enigma of a mysterious tidally-locked planet, all before their inner chaos takes over in this sci-fi point and click adventure.
STAKEOUT
Studio – Spell Circle Pty Ltd
Stakeout is a first-person sandbox photography sim about vampire hunting.
DUNGEONS AND DINING TABLES
Studio – Catalyst Games Pty Ltd
A cosy RPG about collecting furniture and delving dungeons. Play as an Axolotl and delve dungeons to collect rare furniture to decorate your home – the cosier your house is, the higher your stats. Go forth and drive the grumpiness from the land: your perfect home is just a dungeon away.
INCARNAL
Studio – Were You Followed
Shape intimate and loving relationships in a dark fantasy hellscape where you provide solace and safety to those who have never been able to experience it before.
WAY TO THE WOODS
Studio – onepixel.dog
A Deer and Fawn must embark on a journey through an abandoned world of the unknown to get home.
UNANNOUNCED LAMP GAME
Studio – Studio Folly
An action-adventure Roguelike game from Studio Folly, the studio behind Gubbins.
Emerging Gamemakers Fund
Pitching a funding body like Screen Australia for a grant can be a fairly intimidating process when you consider how early some game projects are in their development. The Emerging Gamemakers Fund aims to allow new talent to experiment and flesh out ideas with structured assistance. Projects can apply for up to $30,000 in grant funding
DANCING HEARTS
Studio – Creme Purlee Games
As the leader of a once-thriving lion dance troupe now disbanded, you must climb your way out from underneath debilitating debt by convincing former teammates to return to the sport they gave up, and competing in auto chess-inspired dance battles on your way to reclaim lost glory.
SHAPESHIFTER (WORKING TITLE)
Studio – Lauren Nicholls
A 2D indie puzzle game about a shapeshifter and their journey across a far-flung land haunted by ghosts and unfriendly forces.
ASCENT OF THE LAST COLOSSUS
Studio – Daniel Ferguson
Ascend the Last Colossus and piece together the stories of its inhabitants. As players make their way up the staggeringly huge being, they’ll begin to understand the motivations behind the colossus’s various inhabitants and piece together the story of what is believed to be the last colossus.
BEDTIME STORIES
Studio – Liquid Heart Pty Ltd
Ward off evils in Cantonese and Indonesian fairytales to find mystical artefacts, only to realise that the allies you form during your journey are much more powerful.
GLOBE GLIDER
Studio – Wheels and Bones Pty Ltd
An open-world travel game for the Playdate, aimed at educating players about our planet.
ROB & ROLL
Studio – Weird Flex Studio Pty Ltd
Play as a bee maestro, collecting musical instrument seeds to grow your sonic garden.
POLY PLAYGROUND
Studio – Zac Lucarelli
Poly Playground is a casual, playful 3D sandbox designed to nurture creatives through burnout.
HEX BOUND
Studio – Skye Lavelle
You are a half-witch, half-fae whose magic has been ripped away by a curse. Your Coven and all the Fae realms are slowly collapsing due to a cancerous rot. Uncover its source, reclaim your power, and fight to save your dying worlds.
ORION’S END
Studio – Southfog Games Pty Ltd
Orion’s End is a Space Adventure Life Sim with a heavy focus on exploration, adventure, and forging friendships amongst the stars.
DRAGON VALLEY
Studio – Pat Naoum Games Pty Ltd
Dragon Valley is a crafting game where you can copy, paste and build with any object in the world. A sandbox adventure about exploring ancient mysteries and saving your people.
CANVAS STREET
Studio – Leura Konstanze Smith
‘Canvas Street is a game about designing apartments. In the game, you design different homes for different people, going through the architectural design process one step at a time. It is a game about the fun of doing architecture!
PUTRID/SHARP
Studio – Perseus Harris
Slice your way through the stages of rot as you try to save someone in a decaying world.
RAWRING CANDIES
Studio – 50 Seconds Studio Pty Ltd
The sweet sirens of monstrosity has been rung! Savoury treats are coming to wreck Candy Land. Play as a chaotic candy maker and work with your friends to craft delicious candies and feed them to your hungry dragon. Juggle ingredients, operate quirky machinery, and take care of gremlins as you race against the clock before the Monster consumes Candy Land. Build the dragon’s health and sweetness, load up your canons, dodge incoming attacks, and face monsters together in epic battles. Can you balance the mayhem of candy-making with the thrill of monster-battling to emerge victorious?
You can learn more about the teams working on each of the funded projects here.
ALT: Games
Following it’s recent announcement, ALT: Games is a fresh games event that focuses on the talent and art of gamemaking. Held in conjunction with the Powerhouse Games Initiative, the festival will showcase games and host international talent with key events bridging the gap between games, gamemakers and the community that enjoy them. It’s taking place April 12-14 in Parramatta, Sydney.
The 2025 Future Leaders Delegation
For many game developers, GDC is a pipe dream without significant saving given how expensive it is to attend. The Screen Australia-led delegation supports developers in fast-tracking that initial experience by financially supporting their attendance, allowing each of them to seek out professional opportunities and network on the world stage.
The recipients are:
· Amber Stacey (WA)
· Chantel Eagle (VIC)
· Edwin Montgomery (NSW)
· Heidi Borge (SA)
· Joel Davison (VIC)
· Lindsay Mansfield (TAS)
· Neema Iyer (NSW)
