VicScreen, the state creative agency of Victoria, Australia, has announced the two participants for its Victorian Game Development Internship program for 2023. The program serves as an accelerated pathway for up-and-coming game developer talent to take on paid roles in both VicScreen itself, as well as game development studios in the state.
The successful recipients for 2023 are Phoebe Watson and Memia Lin, who will undertake placements at independent studio Robot Circus (Ticket to Earth), as well as blockbuster developer Sledgehammer Games (Call of Duty: Vanguard).
Read: Victoria’s games industry continues to thrive, and other states must take note
Phoebe Watson, a proud Yarrer Gunditj woman from the Maar Nation, is known in the local scene for her work as a lead game designer on Future Folklore with studio, Guck. She also exhibited a micro-game called Everyday in a recent series commissioned by VicTogether and the Freeplay Independent Games Festival. She is an RMIT graduate in Game Design.
‘I’m eager to shadow some of the talented creatives in games and bring a unique First Nations perspective to the various projects that I’ll get to be part of,’ Watson said in a provided statement. She also hopes to ‘begin to pave a culturally safe path for other Indigenous creatives.’
Memia Lin is also an RMIT Game Design graduate, specialising in 2D/3D game art and game design. She was part of the winning NSI TAFE 48-hour game jam team that produced Super Rolla Bird. Lin remarked that she’s ‘passionate about finding ways to encourage players to connect with one another through new ways of gameplay and producing diverse environments to champion that work.’
The inaugural Victorian Game Development Intern in 2022 was David Parkin, who also participated in GamesHub and Creative Victoria’s games writing mentorship program, Wordplay.
