Sixteen talented games developers joined Screen Queensland’s Games Residency program at the end of 2025, embarking on a 12-month journey where they receive the support, guidance and space to ideate, develop and launch their own unique games. So far in the program, the residents have been put through their paces testing their ideas and experiencing the many aspects of games development through a 72-hour game jam, 24-hour pitch jam and month-long release jam.
“Experience is the hardest kind of teacher. It gives you the test first and the lesson afterward.”
– Oscar Wilde
In January, our residents were given four days (or 72 hours) to create a new game based on the prompts 13, Ticket to Paradise and Don’t Go Outside. This was a freely creative exercise to help the residents get to know each other and break the ice. They successfully created three games in the allotted time including one that was playable on the Gameboy!
February saw the residents create a pitch deck for a new game idea inspired by the phrases city of gold, eye in the sky/feet on the ground and whales. The teams then presented their ideas in front of the group, with some taking their first leap into public speaking. The residents started to build their capacity for effectively communicating their ideas and experiencing how quickly a concept can take shape.
The cohort then embarked on a five-week intensive release jam, in which they created a playable prototype, as well as endeavouring to market and release it to the public. We knew this would be a serious challenge, but there was a method to the madness. Through the release jam, the developers were exposed to many aspects of life in games development. Not just the creation of the game itself, but effectively managing their workload to create marketing materials, meet external deadlines and rely on constant open communication within their workgroups to compete the associated tasks.
The residents were challenged to form their own teams and create a game using the stimuli words Australiana, swarm and juxtaposition as inspiration. The process included setting up a Steam page, creating branding, crafting promotional assets and opening dedicated social media accounts, before packaging everything up and presenting it to our tough, but fictitious, games expo (AKA the Screen Queensland Games team: Jed, Tomas, Alastair and Sean).
The cohort attacked this mini project with great enthusiasm, and now have a greater appreciation for scope control, task mapping, external deadline mapping and development considerations, and the importance of staying connected as a work-group through the life of a project. The residents earned these insights—particularly an awareness of the potential pitfalls and common mistakes in development—in only five weeks, instead of years into developing a project. This will be invaluable as they now shift their focus to their larger projects, buoyed by a busy first quarter in the residency program, marked by intensive growth through hard work.
You can see (and play) the fruits of their labour!
Reefglider
The Isle of Lost Bees
Super Pain Toad Carnage
In the coming months, the residents will form teams and start the development process of the games that they’ll be building throughout the residency and beyond. Stay tuned for more updates from our Games Residency program throughout the year!
