Winners of the UK Games Fund pitch development programme revealed

Eight teams have been selected as winners for the UK Games Fund ‘pitch development programme’, which is an entry level grant giving to games still in the early stages of development. These winners receive £10,000 (part cash, part support) to produce a prototype of a pitched game which will then be shown at a ‘consumer games show’ later in the year, which is likely to be Gamescom or, keeping with the UK focus, the Eurogamer Expo in Birmingham in September.

The winners of the pitch development programme are as follows:

• Arcfire Games Ltd (Bristol)
• Archway Interactive Ltd (Leeds)
• Blueprint Digital Media Ltd (Bournemouth)
• Dumpling Media Ltd (Brighton)
• Heartsman Ltd (Stafford)
• Leviathan Games Ltd (Cambridge)
• Ocean Spark Studios Ltd (Huddersfield)
• Wabisabi Play Ltd (Brighton)

These developers will also be able to submit their games for the full UK Games Fund, which doles out £25k grants to works currently in production. These are historically hugely competitive, but having already been chosen for the pitch development programme could give applicants a boost when it comes to the big prize.

“Tranzfuser gave us the opportunity to network with peers and gave us access to Games Development expert advice,” says Katie Nelson, studio head at Blueprint Digital Media, who previously applied for the UK Games Fund Tranzfuser prize in 2016. “Although we weren’t successful on getting funding on that occasion, the things we learned were invaluable – and we are using that new knowledge to grow our company.

“We are really excited about the opportunities we know will be presented by taking part in the pitch development programme and we are hoping that by implementing everything we learned last time around, we will learn even more and meet new and inspiring people.

“Without these initiatives, we’d still be working almost in isolation and without all the inspiration and great feedback we have received.”

Paul Durrant, the UK Games Fund director, has this to say of the programme: “The pitch development programme fills an important gap in our offering, supporting promising teams that need an alternative option to pitching straight in for one of our regular UK Games Fund grants. We were delighted to see how many applicants self-selected this route.”