Mental Health Game Dev Champions 2024 Begins

Mental Health Game Dev Champions 2024 has begun!

From now, jammers from across the world will begin creating their mental health related games as a part of this inaugural event from Safe In Our World.

Game Dev Champions is a worldwide event, encouraging entries from a variety of ages, skills, and diverse backgrounds.

Games are an amazing vehicle to express the difficult and often emotional mental health journey, that people face almost on a daily basis. Through this initiative, and by sharing these experiences, it ensures the creators that their voice is being heard; and for the players, to sample the journey that many people go through, more than often silently.

The event will be judged by an esteemed panel, and winners will receive a selection of prizes provided by our sponsors, that will help gamers develop a career or deeper interest in video game development.

Get involved and join in the jam here.

Want to chat to other participants/potential team mates? Join our Discord!

Game Dev Champions Master Classes

As part of the event, we will be hosting a series of Master Classes tackling various aspects of game development, with the aim of providing developers with the tools and expertise to create their games. We hope these master classes will inspire and empower participants to create incredible experiences and contribute to the de-stigmatization around mental health.

All of the master classes will be recorded and put on our YouTube channel in a playlist here.

The first of these classes will take place on June 5th, and will be hosted by Safe In Our World’s Sky Tunley Stainton and Rosie Taylor. This class will focus on how to prioritise your wellbeing and avoid burnout when developing a game, providing tangible and practical take-aways for our fresh game jammers.

On June 20th, Harriet Frayling will be sharing expertise on how to integrate more accessibility options into your games. An important part of creating games requires forethought on accessibility features, with consideration throughout the development process. We’re delighted to have Harriet join us to share this knowledge with our community.

Join experienced game designers Anna Latchman, Dan McCreadie and Sid Girhotra from Outright Games to learn about creating games specifically for a younger audience.

Rosie is joined by Meg Clarke, Joshua Garrity and George Willard to discuss how indie developers can start the process of pitching to a publisher. Learn the inside tricks of how to pitch, when to pitch, and what to pitch, alongside some common misconceptions when pitching a game.