Northern Ireland's first virtual Game Awards took place earlier this month, and saw Hortalius developer, Brain & Nerd walk away with the Best Studio award.
Sync NI's very own writer, Brendan Drain is Director of the indie game development studio, Brain & Nerd, and the award was accepted by studio head and former Sync NI staff member, Tina Lauro Pollock.
The company became one of the last Northern Ireland-based studios to gain funding from Creative Europe before Brexit, for its Hortalius game, and Tina recently was named Women in Games' Businesswoman of the Year.
Presented from the Farset Labs in Belfast by the NI Game Dev Network with support from Northern Ireland Screen, the event featured awards across six categories, celebrating two years of creativity in the local industry.
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Level 91 Entertainment walked away with Best Game for Inertial Drift at the NI Game Awards and Hypixel Studios won Most Anticipated Game with its upcoming project Hytale.
Outsider Games won Best Art Direction for Jennifer Wilde: Unlikely Revolutionaries in the first award of the night.
Twitch streamer and Pixel Mill Restart programme member Lisa Cooney took home the Rising Star award, with the judging panel additionally awarding special distinctions to Naoimh Murchan of Italic Pig and Amber Barnett of Northern Ireland Screen.
The Community Choice Award was also awarded to Caolan McKendry, co-ordinator of the NI Game Dev Network.
The awards also featured a special collaboration with local games composer Richard Campbell and the Irish Video Game Orchestra to create a medley of soundtracks from video games developed by local studios, which is now available to view on Youtube.
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You can find a full list of winners at this year’s NI Game Awards below and you can rewatch the ceremony here.
