Amber Isle wins big at Irish Game Awards alongside government funding announcement
The FIS Games Summit in Galway held the Imirt Irish Game Awards on Friday where Amber Isle won five awards.
The Imirt Game Awards were held this Friday in the Radisson Red in Galway, Ireland with Northern Irish-developed Amber Isle winning five awards. The awards, held as part of the yearly FÍS Games Summit run by Árdan, were making up for lost time after COVID-19 prevented shows from being held in 2022, 2023, and 2024, and saw awards handed out for those years too. The voting body for the show was made up of international game developers and Imirt members, with Imirt being an organisation that seeks to represent game developers across the Island of Ireland.
Amber Isle and the other winners
Source: Team17
Best Game Design was won by shopkeep management sim Amber Isle, with the reverse Frogger-inspired tower defence game, Scrambled Eggs, taking home runner-up.
Best Art was also won by Amber Isle with the chaotic steal ‘em-up, Filthy Animals: Heist Simulator, receiving a runner-up nod.
Top honours for Best Narrative were reserved for the grim surrealism of the indie darling Mothered, developed by Galway-based Jamie Gavin. The Irish co-developed Baldur’s Gate 3 received its only award of the night as the runner-up in the category.
Amber Isle was also awarded Best Audio, with another Northern Irish dev, Night Dial, getting the runner-up honour for Crowded. Followed.
Best Technical Achievement went to the pixel art bullet hell-inspired, Just Dodge LOL, developed by Gretham, and runner-up went to Filthy Animals.
Best Analogue Game was awarded to the comedy dice game, Dungeons and Naggins, while the tabletop card game that you play with Tarot cards, Battle of Tarot, was the runner-up.
The show also had several awards, which were voted on exclusively by dues-paying members of Imirt. The Rising Star award went to Jamie Gavin, who along with releasing a "trilogy of five games," had recently won the Long Feature award at A MAZE Dublin for his game [ECHOSTASIS].
The Community Hero award went to Darren Kearney, another Galway-based game developer, who has been helping run game jams and events for over a decade and was recognized for his contribution to helping grow the Irish game development scene.
Best Upcoming Game was also voted on by Imirt members. The award went to Axyz, which was released between the time it was nominated and Friday.
Best Debut was won by the ever-popular Amber Isle, while the analogue Dungeons and Naggins received the runner-up prize.
Game of the Year 2024 nominees included eligible games that came out in either 2022 or 2023. The winner was Filthy Animals, with Mothered taking home the second spot.
Finally, the Game of the Year 2025 nominees featured games released in 2024. This was a repeat of the winners of Best Debut, with Amber Isle winning and Dungeon and Naggins taking runner-up.
Investment in the scene
After the awards, Imirt CEO and Gambrinous Studio Director, Colm Larkin, and Árdan CEO, Alan Duggan took to the stage to make several announcements regarding further support by the Irish government in the games industry, in the form of funding for the Digital Game Portfolio.
It was announced that Screen Ireland, the state development agency for Irish film television and animation, will be delivering €500,000 in support of Irish game development. The fund will be managed by Árdan and Imirt and will include the running of IndieDev 2025. Speaking on the €15,000/£15,000 grant for small teams to produce prototypes, Duggan told RTÉ (the Irish national broadcaster), "This fund is a vital opportunity for developers to get early support on their projects and will be a cornerstone of the initiatives for games in 2025.”
The awards and these announcements were part of the FÍS Game Summit, which is now in its 5th year. The event hosted talks from industry veterans like Tom Hall, the famed designer of many early iD Software games like Wolfenstein 3D and Doom, and Xalavier Nelson, the studio head of Strange Scaffold, who has worked on games like El Paso, Elsewhere and I Am Your Beast, as well as the upcoming Borderlands 4 and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Tactical Takedown.
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