Safe In Our World Announces Mental Health Game Dev Champions Finalists & Showcase

Video games mental health charity, Safe In Our World, has officially revealed the finalists for its 2024 Mental Health Game Dev Champions event. The organization also announced the date for the highly anticipated Game Dev Champions Showcase premiere, set to air on Saturday, December 7th, at 6 PM GMT via YouTube premiere. You can tune in by clicking here or by watching live below.

The Game Dev Champions event invited creatives from diverse backgrounds and experience levels to participate in a game jam centered on the theme of mental health. This worldwide initiative aimed to inspire not only seasoned developers but also aspiring talents and individuals outside traditional game development roles, offering them an opportunity to cultivate new skills that could lead to exciting career prospects.

To support participants, Safe In Our World hosted a series of expert-led masterclasses, tackling critical aspects of game development. These workshops equipped developers with the tools and knowledge to create impactful games exploring mental health themes.

“We’re incredibly proud of everybody who got involved, from the game jammers all the way to sponsors like Xbox and Discord,” said Sarah Sorrell, Charity Director at Safe In Our World. “Your creativity and passion have shown us how games can be an important vehicle to tackle the often underrepresented subject of mental health.”

Meet the Finalists

An esteemed panel of mental health and gaming industry experts has selected 25 exceptional games as finalists, competing across categories such as design, narrative, innovation, audio, and technology.

Here are the 2024 finalists:

• A Place to Start
• Close Knit
• Coyote Summer
• Emotional Damage
• For Tomorrow
• Glass Thoughts
• Growing Pains
• Incomplete Books In My Garden
• Just a Month
• Letters
• Life in Small Steps
• Magical Greenhouse v0.1
• Mind Over Machine
• On Constant Delay
• On the Trajectory of Your Rocket to the Moon
• One Off Detective
• Scribble for Your Thoughts
• Seeds of Hope
• Still here
• The Boy in the Play
• The Lonely Architect – Pieces of Him
• The Silence is Loud
• The Wish
• Umbra
• You Have Ten Minutes

The Game Dev Champions Showcase will be hosted by Doug Cockle and GeekyCassie, marking the culmination of a year filled with awareness campaigns and fundraising efforts by Safe In Our World. During the event, winners across all categories will be announced, celebrating the creativity and dedication of the game jam participants.

Learn more about Safe In Our World and its initiatives at safeinourworld.org.