The Australian Game Developer Awards 2019 have taken place with mobile studio Mighty Kingdom taking home the prize for Studio of the Year.
The event was hosted at the end of Games Connect Asia Pacific in Melbourne, Australia bringing the country’s best developers from the previous year together for a night of celebration.
House House’s Untitled Goose Game grabbed the accolade for Best Sound Design and Game of the Year, after a whirlwind few months that has seen the bird title take the world by storm.
“Surreal”
“It’s a little bit surreal,” Mighty Kingdom founder and CEO Philip Mayes told PocketGamer.biz.
“This particular year we haven’t released any particular product but this is about all the work we’ve done before that and all we’re doing now. With the industry, the graduate program and what we run.
“We try very, very hard to be a responsible studio within South Australia. We understand the scale we have brings a lot of attention and we feel that we need to use that for good, not for evil. And make sure we feed that back into the community.”
Continued growth
In response to what the Australian Games industry needs to do in the next few years to continue its growth, Mayes believes that the number one thing is for “people to have “ambition and think about what the industry could be”.
I think it’s very easy to focus on the problems that are in front of you,” he said.
“Making a game is hard. Running a studio is hard but growing an embassy is hard too. If everybody’s ambition is to just reach one or two people and release a game or two, the whole industry suffers.”
The full list of winners can be seen below:
Best Art
Void Bastards by Blu Manchu Games
Best AR/VR
Paper Fire Rookie by Ultimerse
Best Sound Design
Untitled Goose Game by House House
APRA AMCOS Award for Best Music
Frog Detective: The Haunted Island by Worm Club
Best Serious Game
Bleached Az by Chaos Theory
Best Narrative
Black Widow by Flux
Best Gameplay
JumpGrid by Ian MacLarty
Industry Champion
Ally McLean
Lighting The Way
Rae Johnston
Adam Lanceman Award
Liam Routt
Game of the Year
Untitled Goose Game by House House
Studio of the Year
Mighty Kingdom
You can keep up-to-date with all of our coverage of Melbourne International Games Week 2019 right here.