A popular free games festival showcasing the work of graduate games developers returns to Dundee on 27th and 28th September.
ProtoPlay is the games show for the UK Games Fund’s Tranzfuser competition. Nineteen teams from across the UK will travel to Dundee to get player feedback on the first playable versions of the games they created over the past ten weeks.
The two-day event will take place alongside the Dundee Design Festival at Michelin Scotland Innovation Park, rather than its former home in City Square.
“We always had such great feedback from Dundee families attending in the past” said Kirsty Gibson, Head of Impact at the UK Games Fund. “ProtoPlay provides an amazing experience for our Tranzfuser teams to show off their games for the first time. Free tickets for ProtoPlay are limited due to the event capacity and are available from protoplay.co.uk on a first come, first served basis. Each ticket gives a two-hour opportunity to play the games and give feedback to the creators.”
Games ranging from ice hockey party brawlers to pixel puzzle platformers, from cosy narrative games to twin-stick action roguelikes will all be available to play.
Tranzfuser is run by Dundee-based UK Games Talent and Finance CIC. The highlight for the teams is that they are able to pitch for up to £25,000 of funding from the UK Games Fund at the end of the competition.
Local company Pocket Sized Hands started out as a Tranzfuser team in 2016 and has gone on to be funded by the UK Games Fund.
Gary McCartan from Dundee-based game dev studio Pocket Sized Hands said:
“Taking part in Tranzfuser was transformative for our studio when we started out as graduates. The programme helped us create sustainable foundations for the long-term success of our company, supporting our growth as professional developers and helping us to expand our network of UK-wide contacts within the industry. Bringing ProtoPlay back to Dundee is a phenomenal opportunity for both the graduate teams and local game-playing public! As a local studio, we can’t wait to get along to meet the teams from across the UK and play their games!”
