Games developers invited to participate in a new Northampton competition
Games developers across England have been invited to enter their games and prototypes into the Northampton Film Festival (NFF) 2026, where shortlisted entries will be judged by some of the best in the gaming industry and the winners announced at the festival’s Awards Ceremony in Northampton, on Sunday 8 March.
The invitation has been issued by the NFF and the recently established Northampton Games Network, which includes the University of Northampton’s Games Department. They are looking for submissions of games, from individuals or teams, which are original concepts and functional (with at least one playable level, title, and end screen), including a gameplay video by their 19th January deadline.
The shortlist of entries will be drawn up by the Northampton Games Network, before being presented to industry judges to make the final decision. All shortlisted games will be displayed during NFF, which runs from 27 February - 8 March 2026.
According to David Nicholls, Programme Leader for Games Design at the University of Northampton: “After we ran the first Northampton Games Network dev meet up earlier this year, we realised how much games talent is based
locally. This will be a great opportunity to show how creatively diverse the Midlands are.”
Becky Carrier, NFF’s founder and director added: “There is clearly a huge community of people interested in creating games, and with Games technology and Film being closer than ever, we wanted to offer something that would support closer collaboration between creatives in Northants, the Midlands and beyond. Plus we’ve got some amazing judges!”
The gaming industry judges for the competition are as follows:
Kish Hirani - a BAFTA Patron who has held a number of technical leadership roles at notable development studios and platform-holders, including Microsoft and Sony PlayStation as the Head of Developer Services. Currently on multiple advisory boards, his credits include being recognised as one of the Top 100 ITech leaders in the UK 2023 and the recipient of the first ever Diversity Star Award at the Video Games Industry Develop:Star Awards 2019.
Jupiter Hadley - Head of Community at Toya Play Studio and freelance Visiting Lecturer at the National Film & Television School’s Certificate in Indie Game Development course. Jupiter has also worked as a freelance journalist for Metro.co.uk, Indie Games Plus and AlphaBetaGamer and as a Game Licensing Manager at Armor Games.
Quang DX - a BAFTA Member and Lead Technical Game Designer at Bitmap Bureau Ltd. Quang is also the Founder, Designer and Coder at Asobitech and columnist at Debug Magazine. In addition he is Co-Organiser of the Brilliant Indie Treasures showcase - an annual celebration of everything Indie, showcasing previously unseen, unpublished or undercelebrated Indie Games, and their developers.
HaZ Dulull - a multidisciplinary director and producer with decades of experience across games, film, VFX, and television. His directing credits include Netflix features, Disney+ shows, Fortnite projects, and game cinematics including Evil Genius 2 (Rebellion) and Dune: Awakening (Funcom).
Nia Wearn - a Producer at Deep Silver Dambuster Studio. Nia has previouly been the Staffordshire University Course Director for Esports, Games Studies and Communities, and Senior Lecturer in Computer Games Design. In 2025 she was a mentor for the Ukie Student Game Jam, and a Jury member for UNICEF’s Global Game Jam - which brought together young people from eight countries to celebrate creativity, collaboration and digital skills through video game development.
Tomas Sala - a BAFTA nominated Artist best known to gamers as the creator of The Falconeer - an XboxSeries X/S Launch Title which he developed solo - as a homage to the great air combat games of the past; as well as for his eexotic Skyrim Mod series: Moonpath to Elsweyr.
Submissions to the festival can be made for free via itch.io by anyone living in England in either the Under 21yrs or 21yrs and Over categories.
To read the full competition details and submit, visit https://itch.io/jam/nffxngn26
To be kept up to date about the Northampton Games Network, follow them on LinkedIn
To find out more about Northampton Film Festival, visit https://northamptonfilmfestival.co.uk