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| (Image Source: London Games Festival) |
London Games Festival (LGF) is slated to the biggest event yet for the international showcase of video games with over 45 events locking into the schedule, a host of global developers confirmed for its Official Selection, and a huge number of industry attendees expected slated to be held on April 9-25, 2024. With this in mind, festival organizer Games London officially unveiled the line-up for the fourth annual Official Selection which champions forty new and innovative indie games made in London, across the UK, and around the world, across five categories comprising of Made in London, Best of British, International Innovators, Comedy and New Voices.
This year's selection includes Mars After Midnight from Papers, Please and Return of the Obra Dinn creator Lucas Pope, the sequel to BAFTA-nominated Citizen Sleeper, and Crow Country by London-based Snipperclips creators SFB Games. The New Voices and International Innovators strands give focus to global games from new studios hailing from India, Brazil, the Philippines, France, Italy, Canada and Iceland. This international selection of titles will be showcased online throughout LGF through activities like a dedicated Steam festival demo event but will also be playable in person on Steam Deck and Playdate handhelds at a variety of events over the two weeks. The Official Selection line-up comprises of the following:
MADE IN LONDON
• Exilium (lonch.me)
• GladiEATers (MilkBubblesGames)
• Morgan: Metal Detective (Studio Morgan)
• Squarelets (Chaos Cookie)
• Crow Country (SFB Games)
• Thank Goodness You're Here! (Coal Supper)
• Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector (Jump Over the Age)
BEST OF BRITISH
• Dead Meat (Meaning Machine) London, Bristol
• Mimic (Ryan Laley Games) Colchester, England
• Phoenix Springs (Calligram Studio) Hebden Bridge, UK
• Mythwrecked: Ambrosia Island (Polygon Treehouse) Dundee (Scotland) & Cambridge(England)
• Luna Abyss (Bonsai Collective) Remote, across United Kingdom
• Botany Manor (Balloon Studios) Totnes, United Kingdom
Leximan (Knights of Borria) Falmouth & Cranbrook, UK
COMEDY
• Lost in Space - The Adventure Game (Scary Robot) Las Vegas, Nevada, USA
• Lucky Tower Ultimate (Studio Seufz) Stuttgart, Germany
• Esophaguys (Esophaguys LLC) Remote, USA, Canada, South Africa, India
• Times & Galaxy (Copychaser Games) Edmonton, Canada
• Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip (snekflat) Ede, Netherlands
INTERNATIONAL INNOVATORS
• The Posthumous Investigation (Mother Gaia Studio) Bauru, Brazil
• The Deadly Path (Owlskip Enterprises) Remote - Brighton, Amsterdam, New York
• Echo of the Waves (Oneira Games) Geneva, Switzerland
• Stars in the Trash (Valhalla Cats) Murcia, Spain. Poland and Philippines
SacriFire (Pixelated Milk) Warsaw, Poland
• Steel Seed (Storm in a Teacup) Rome, ItalyAloft (Astrolabe Interactive) Montréal, Canada
• 30 Birds (RAM RAM Games / Business Goose) Brussels, Belgium
• Bionic Bay (Psychoflow Studio, Mureena Oy) Taiwan, Finland
• Nirvana Noir (Feral Cat Den) New York City
• Toads of the Bayou: Prologue (La Grange) France
• Mars After Midnight (Playdate) (Lucas Pope / 3909) Portland, Oregon, USA
• Rusty's Retirement (Mister Morris Games) Tallinn, Estonia
NEW VOICES
• RAM: Random Access Mayhem (Xylem Studios) Victoria, Canada
• Gurei (Lobo Sagaz Studio) Florianópolis, Brazil
• Fall Up (Unicellular Games) Philippines
• Fishbowl (imissmyfriends.studio) Goa, India
• Music Power Up (microStudio) Strasbourg, France
• The Perfect Pencil (Studio Cima) Italy: Milan, Rome, Crema, Lecco, Caravaggio, Fiumicino. United Kingdom: London
• Island of Winds (Parity Games) Reykjavik, Iceland
• Dino Path Trail (Void Pointer) Rome, Italy
This line-up of global games developers reflects both the breadth of content and international flavour at London Games Festival this year. An expanded line-up of Side Events are being added from community and industry partners alike, set to take the overall list of LGF events to over 45. For regularly updated listings head to https://games.london/#whatson. These will run alongside core events already announced such as:
• Ensemble which champions underrepresented ethnicities working in video games. The new cohort for which will be unveiled at the start of LGF on April 9th ahead of a Trafalgar Square showcase on April 13th.
• Games Finance Market which connects investors and publishers with games creators and this year includes added delegations from Italy, France, Sweden, Finland, Romania and Canada.
• Tentpole partner events Now Play This, W.A.S.D, and the BAFTA Games Awards
Over 4,000 industry professionals are expected to participate in various B2B events with the overall festival attendance in-person set to exceed last year’s 58,000. With the support from the Mayor of London, the London Games Festival is delivered by Games London, an initiative from Film London, the capital's screen industries agency, and UK video games industry trade body Ukie. A range of businesses from across the sector have pledged support for the Festival including festival partners Coutts, Taylor Wessing, Alliotts, Corpay, Revolgy and Wizards of the Coast. For more information and updates on LGF 2024, head to www.games.london or @londongamesfest on social media.
