07 Sep Scottish Games Awards – CRAFT Categories
Alongside the four GAMES trophies in this year’s Scottish Games Awards, we also have five CRAFT categories, highlighting excellence in a number of specialist areas. These are:
- Art & Animation
- Technical Achievement
- Audio
- Creativity
- Best Tools/Tech
- Best Education Programme
While these (hopefully) speak for themselves, we’re still aiming to get a really broad range of entries and recognise work from across the whole games ecosystem. So let us break them down for you and explain what sort of entries are eligible.
Art & Animation
This art and animation award recognises outstanding work in the field of visual art and its use within a videogame – or game-related work. By that we mean game trailers, interstitials, machinima, etc. So anyone producing that type of work is welcome to enter. Again we’re not discriminating in terms of platform, genre or business model, so every game in the eligible period (released between August 1st 2022 to September 2nd 2023) can be entered.
Technical Achievement
This award recognises a game (or game-related work) which has done something excellent, cool or awesome with regard to technology. This can be the creative utilisation of a platform, a new programming technique, squeezing incredible performance out of a device, or anything relating to the implementation of the game.
Audio
Game audio, scores and soundtracks have undergone a huge renaissance in the last few years, with live performances, vinyl pressings and radio shows dedicated to the work being produced across the games world. We want to celebrate the incredible creativity and work in games audio, by celebrating the best use of audio in games. We’re keeping this category as broad as we can. So original soundtracks are welcome, as are licensed work, sound effects, or anything related to the way the game sounds, or uses audio.
Creativity
Our creativity award recognises a game which does something unusual, surprising, amazing, unexpected, or just downright clever. We’re keeping it deliberately broad, to welcome entries from across the whole games ecosystem. So we are happy for the creativity to be expressed in almost any way, from the gameplay, mechanic or controls, through to the business model, the engagement with players, or… anything else.
Best Tools / Tech
The tools and technology used to make games are evolving at an incredible rate. While the major game engines used to build and publish games are household names, there is a whole generation of tools and tech out there that offer other services to the world of games. Areas such as live ops, monetisation, data analytics, advertising and community management are all now being used by developers worldwide. This award will recognise and celebrate the technology which keeps the games industry going.
Best Education Programme
Scotland has an incredible education pipeline. We have seven universities and 11 colleges offering games courses across the country, along with extracurricular clubs, code workshops and more. This award is open to all of them and will recognise excellence and achievement in an educational programme related to games. So this does not have to be game design, development or production. It can focus on esports, incorporate games as learning tools within the classroom, or use games as a fundamental part of the teaching process.
Enter Now!
We hope that helps! Our goal with the Scottish Games Awards is to reach the widest possible audience and help to showcase and celebrate the greatest range of work from all of the creators, developers, indies, studios, educators, organisations and games-related brilliance we know is happening across the whole of Scotland.
Entries to the Awards are free and are open until 17:00 on Friday, September 22nd 2023. There’s still time to get your entries in. Entries are submitted by a simple Google form. You can enter your studio, your team, your friends, colleagues and peers – or anyone in the sector who’s work you admire. You can even enter yourself – it’s OK, honest).