Screen NSW invests over $580,000 in new local games development
Screen NSW is funding 20 emerging and small-to-medium NSW game developers through its Digital Games Seed Development Program to support original projects and grow industry talent.
The announcement:
Screen NSW is investing over $580,000 to back the development of new local games projects, supporting original IP and encouraging a pipeline of developer talent in NSW.
Introduced as a commitment in the Creative Communities policy and a priority as part of the three-year NSW Screen & Digital Games Strategy to grow the industry, this round of Screen NSW’s Digital Games Seed Development Program will support 20 emerging and small-medium developers and game creators who will share in $589,848 of funding to take their games to the next level.
From projects featuring narratives and characters based in real world settings or newly imagined worlds, to exploring topical social issues, or transporting players to a high-stakes adventure, the program showcases the depth of creativity and talent of NSW game developers. These include an adventure game set in an anthropomorphic world rich in Indigenous storytelling; a cyberpunk adventure game exploring a city shaped by massive inequality and environmental degradation; a game exploring an apocalyptic Australia; a reflective narrative game following a nurse battling burnout in a broken healthcare system; and a mechanically driven horror game that will have you playing with one eye open.
The program provides grants of up to $30,000 for early-stage game development to reach the next stage of development. The support will also assist developers in preparing their projects to attract further finance, an important stepping stone for projects to enter full-scale development.
This is the second round of the program, which first launched in March 2024, and is part of a suite of programs offered by Screen NSW designed to support the NSW digital games sector at all levels and encourage sustainable growth in the state. This includes travel and market support for domestic and international gaming events through the PAX Market Support Program, GCAP 2024 Travel Support Program, GDC 2025 Market Travel Program, and Gamescom 2025 and Gamescom 2024 Market Travel Programs. The Digital Games Rebate expenditure threshold was lowered to $350,000 earlier this year, making the rebate more accessible to a broader range of studios, including many independent studios based in NSW.
Head of screen NSW Kyas Hepworth said:
“The digital games sector contributes over $100 million in revenue to the NSW economy, and the Digital Games Seed Development Program is supporting an exciting range of NSW developer talent and games, including creators based regionally, First Nations developers and developers looking to take the next step in their careers.“The variety and potential of the supported projects demonstrate the bold ideas the NSW games industry is capable of. These projects span a wide variety of styles, across multiple genre and project sizes, showcasing the depth of talent and originality in NSW’s digital games sector.
“With the high number of games we are supporting through this program, we are ensuring that we have a strong pipeline of NSW games in development and can ensure our creators can continue to sharpen their skills. By supporting the digital games sector at all levels – from these recipients developing new games, to internationally renowned studios through our Digital Games Rebate – we will continue to see growth in digital games in our state.”
Digital Games Seed Development Program recipient Benjamin Armstrong said:
“The Digital Games Seed Development Program funding has allowed us to kick off production on our project with an incredibly talented team, right from the beginning. Receiving this grant has provided a boost to the credentials of our new team and validation for the game concept itself, while also highlighting Screen NSW’s commitment to supporting the development of First Nations stories in digital games made in NSW.”Full details of the recipients are below.
Game: Buru and The Old People (Studio: N/A)
Genre: Adventure
Team members: Benjamin Armstrong, Amy Potter-Jarman, Brooke Collard, Letoya Muraru, Emma Sjaan Beukers, Natthan Sharpe, Tessa Rose Morecroft and Alexander Tulett.
Synopsis: Buru and The Old People is a narrative-driven adventure game set in a vibrant anthropomorphic world, rich in Indigenous storytelling. Play as retired thief Bururrgan (Buru) who, in need of some extra coin, agrees to investigate a disappearance in The Azure
Mountains. But beware, whispers around town suggest a growing concern and worse in the darkness of the mountains…Game: Dragon Valley (Studio: Pat Naoum Games)
Genre: Action Adventure, Crafting
Team members: Pat Naoum, Jessy Robinson, Mark Saba, Keirron Stach, and Miles Hansen.
Synopsis: Dragon Valley is a hand painted world where you can copy, paste and craft with any object. A sandbox action adventure about exploring ancient mysteries and rescuing your people.Game: Dungeons of Freeport (Studio: Funtime Electrics)
Genre: Roguelike
Team members: Elissa Black.
Synopsis: Dungeons of Freeport blends the mechanics of a classical roguelike with those of a play-once-a-day extraction shooter. Every day all players will get the same set of procedurally generated dungeons to explore and will have to choose between delving one level deeper or escaping back to the surface with whatever loot they’ve obtained.Game: Flux Machina (Studio: Fenix Studios)
Genre: Turn-based, Roguelike, Mechs
Team members: Nick Creecy, Daniel Zhao, Milly Mortensen, Kelin Miao, Kyle Gian and Jake Speer.
Synopsis: Flux Machina is a game about a renegade crew of engineers that must scavenge and construct powerful mechs to battle against a hostile world on the brink of calamity.Game: Gutterjacket (Studio: Nogoodnik Studio)
Genre: Cyberpunk / adventure / point’n’click
Team members: Christopher Marcatili and Luke Marcatili.
Synopsis: When society is in decay and nothing is evenly distributed, survival relies on the deals you make and the bonds you form. Gutterjacket is a narrative-driven adventure game exploring a cyberpunk city shaped by massive inequality, environmental degradation, and rapid technological change. Players take on the role of Cole, a young gutterjacket – a nobody – in the Drift, building alliances that will shape their story and the world around them.Game: Infliction 2 (Working Title) (Studio: Caustic Reality)
Genre: Survival Horror
Team members: Clinton McCleary.
Synopsis: Infliction 2 is a psychological survival horror game where you play as Maggie, a demonologist tormented by guilt, obsession, and vengeance. Trapped in a decaying purgatory version of her hometown, Maggie must perform rituals, uncover hidden truths,
and survive the horrors of her own mind. Reality distorts as insomnia and fear take hold, blurring the line between the supernatural and the psychological.Game: LOVE X LOVE (Studio: TKFY)
Genre: Urban Slice-Of-Life RPG
Team members: Mike Roberts, Richard O’Regan and Julian Langdon.
Synopsis: In LOVE X LOVE, you’re a gig driver chasing love through the neon-lit streets of Middle City, a Sydney-inspired sprawl. This roguelite urban driving RPG blends nightly gigs, relationship-building, and dream-like puzzles, where every choice shapes your fate and the city’s secrets.Game: Macabre (Studio: Weforge Studio)
Genre: Stealth Extraction Horror
Team members: Dean Miller, Jake Davey, Jake Hempson and Jay Topping.
Synopsis: A four-player co-op nightmare where you must outsmart a monster that adapts to your every move. Enter a volatile time rift, craft and upgrade gear to survive, and face shifting objectives on procedural maps. Will you band together, or betray your friends for the
lion’s share of the loot?Game: Nonolith (Studio: Justcamh)
Genre: Puzzle
Team members: Cameron Heydeman and Maël Lizé.
Synopsis: Nonolith is an open world discovery game with secret abilities that you learn as you play. Copy and paste blocks to reshape the world, build bridges and dig tunnels; if a path doesn’t exist, then make one! You never unlock new items and have everything from the
start; you just aren’t told what these are or how to use them.Game: ORACULUS (Studio: Lucidity Loveworks)
Genre: Mystery
Team members: Sophia Westmacott, Ailin Gist, Morgan Tokutake and Declan Garvey.
Synopsis: Welcome to the spectacularly miraculous, wonderful wonder-world of ORACULUS! Where everything is topsy-turvy, completely and utterly frabjous… and everyone holds a dark secret they are desperately trying to hide within the confines of a cryptic, living, breathing hotel. Assume the role of the Wildcard, desperately searching for their missing friend Alice as the hotel falls apart under the betrayal and conflict of four competing factions. In this digitally painted 2D visual novel, investigate, interrogate and sing your ways
through floors upon floors of thievery, mysticism and mayhem… Oh, did we mention it’s a musical?Game: Peeled Eyes (Studio: Lamington Games)
Genre: Horror
Team members: David Kilford.
Synopsis: Peeled Eyes is a mechanically driven horror game where players investigate haunted buildings. In this world some things are too dangerous to look at directly, so you’ll to navigate dangerous spaces with your eyes closed.Game: Retopia (Studio: Chaos Theory Games)
Genre: Base-building/Adventure
Team members: James Lockrey, Nico King, Jennyfer Ong, Pete Turnbull, Kai Ashford-Hatherly, Casey Lenius, Sebastian King and Morgan Tokutake.
Synopsis: Retopia is a cosy adventure management game about second chances. Explore, restore, and rebuild a floating sanctuary with the help of quirky robot companions in a hopeful post-collapse world where nature and machines grow together.Game: Sealed in Red (Studio: N/A)
Genre: Detective Puzzle
Team members: Jeff Wong
Synopsis: Sealed in Red is a detective puzzle game with a touch of the supernatural, where you gather clues and inspect evidence to unravel the mystery behind the vanishing of your childhood friend—an investigation that reaches beyond the grave. Follow the trail of digital footprints, unearth family secrets, and decipher a language of cryptic omens to uncover a truth steeped in Eastern superstition.Game: Tea, Please! (Studio: N/A)
Genre: Cosy, Narrative
Team members: Siobhan Willoughby.
Synopsis: Tea, Please! is a short 30-minute game that explores the contrast between the drudgery and noise of office life and the surprising happiness and peace gained through remote work during lockdown. This is expressed through handcrafted interactive life vignettes punctuated with the simple action of making tea.Game: The Waiting (Studio: PuzzLab)
Genre: Puzzle
Team members: Josh Tredinnick.
Synopsis: Trapped and alone in a strange office building, you climb one floor at a time, solving puzzles and facing moral dilemmas. As reality unravels, uncover the truth behind the building, its lost inhabitants and the mysterious man waiting at the top. The Waiting
challenges you to reflect on your identity and how you spend your time.Game: Toybox (Studio: Noble Steed Games)
Genre: Action Platformer
Team members: Reuben Moorhouse and Ann Li Khaw.
Synopsis: Toybox is a game where everyday toys are alive, struggling under a religious authoritarian regime. You play as The Doll, a cute magical girl doll, who over the course of the game fights various enemies, defeating and learning new abilities from them.Game: Trailbound (Studio: N/A)
Genre: Adventure, Resource Manager, Text-based RPG
Team members: Robbie Hartigan, Kerri-Ann Taggart and Tania Hartigan.
Synopsis: Explore a reimagined early-colonial Australia as you and your crew travel across NSW, surviving the harsh landscape and navigating encounters rooted in culture, myth, and mystery. In Trailbound, you manage resources, make impactful choices, and fight to keep your group alive through illness, misfortune, or fractured relationships. Every journey tells a different story—if you make it to the end.Game: Trinket (Studio: N/A)
Genre: Horror/Fantasy
Team members: Alisha Doherty Hough, Crystal Wilkes, Nigel Haslam, Gaia Heart and Marcos Micozzi.
Synopsis: A tiny traveller explores apocalyptic Australia on the back of an ancient creature and encounters the nightmares that have formed in our absence.Game: Untitled (Studio: Arcade Oven)
Genre: Cosy Decorator Simulator
Team members: James Hindle, Lisa Rye, Tobias Joppen, Juergen Harbich and Anna Bakker.
Synopsis: A cosy, creative sim where you design and decorate adorable tiny homes to build your very own tiny village. Fill your land with quirky characters and custom-built homes as you create a tiny home community full of charm, colour, and personality.Game: Weathering Blue (Studio: Lumorama)
Genre: Narrative, Casual, Puzzle
Team members: Heeny Ellen Yeo and Cuauhtemoc Moreno.
Synopsis: Weathering Blue is a reflective narrative game following Clara, a registered nurse battling burnout in a broken healthcare system. Experience her journey from overwhelming pressure to moments of quiet recovery, self-renewal, and collective strength, as you explore resilience and hope through light puzzles and interactive storytelling.
Source: Screen NSW
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