Kiwi Game Starter 2020 Winners to be Announced by Livestream!
23 March 2021


The winners of this year’s Kiwi Game Starter Competition will be announced this Thursday by Livestream! 

Watch the Livestream on YouTube! 

Please join us at 12:00PM Noon on Thursday March 25th


Join us this Thursday to hear who will be this year’s winner of the 2020 Kiwi Game Starter Competition! Normally the winner would be announced at NZGDC, however due to covid19-related delays, we will be announcing the winner via livestream. The event will be hosted by Carl Leducq, creator of the Zero To Play Podcast and NZGDA Board member, and Ian Shephard, co-founder of Cloudfire Studios. Sam Barham, Studio Director for Balancing Monkey Games (2019 KGS Winner), will also be stopping by to chat about their game Before We Leave.

About Kiwi Game Starter: 

Started in 2014, the Kiwi Game Starter competition is the annual game development award and startup programme for interactive games businesses, hosted by the New Zealand Game Developers Association (NZGDA). Each year there is a prize that includes bespoke mentorship support for the winning teams or individuals and cash to aid in the completion of the winning project. The competition aims to improve the commercial outcomes for NZ developers working towards completing their games. This year’s prize includes $25,000 for the Winner and $10,000 for the Runner Up.

This year’s finalists are: Battlecruisers (Mecha Weka, Auckland), Ghostvale (Wildflower, Wellington), Rose & Locket (Whistling Wizard, Christchurch), and Seedlings (Bardsley Creative, Hamilton).
The 2019 KGS Winner, ‘Before We Leave’ by Balancing Monkey Games, launched with an exclusive publishing deal with Epic Games Store and sold 50,000 copies in the first 6 months after release. Sam Barham, studio director, will be sharing the story as a part of this livestream event. 

Contacts:

Lucas Haley
KGS Program Director
kgs@nzgda.com

Chelsea Rapp
Chairperson, NZGDA
chairperson@nzgda.com