Search For A Star began in 2010, we’ve been getting together every year with studios and leading professionals across the games industry to run our Search for a Star game development challenges, open to students across the UK and Europe.
Search For A Star & its companion challenge, Rising Star, are designed alongside leading studios and game developers to simulate aspects of games industry recruitment. Programming, Design, 3D Art, Animation and VFX students are invited to show their skills & build their portfolio, creating technical game projects and polished game-ready assets — exactly what studios want to see examples of from graduate applicants.
Students can receive feedback on their development projects from games professionals, with high achievers invited to take part in an interview with industry leaders at our annual Finals Day & student conference.
Get help breaking into the industry with Search for a Star
Search For A Star is one of the industry’s biggest student game development challenges, designed to help you make the leap from student to professional games developer. Students are tasked with creating their own games, art assets, animations or visual effects. Students who make it to the final round will have a chance to win an interview with a leading games development studio for a job role! |  |
 | Rising Star is one of the industry’s biggest games development challenges for students who are not yet in their final year of university. As in the core Search For A Star challenges, students are tasked with creating their own games, art assets, animations or visual effects. Students who make it to the final round will have a chance to interview with a leading games development studio! |
Registration for the 2025 challenges will open in October 2024, and project briefs will be released in early November |
Search For A Star Entry Criteria: A final year or Masters/postgrad student |
We work with leading studios across the industry to develop the challenges, designed to help you show the kind of knowledge and abilities that studios are looking for the most. It’s not just to test your skills but to also encourage you to create a piece of work that will make your portfolio shine.
The challenge contains six categories which you can enter: Games Programming, Game Design, 3D Character Art, 3D Environment Art, 3D Animation, and VFX. Each category has its own briefs and, where applicable, concept art donated by the industry.
Challenge Format
We want to prepare you for your future career; that’s why our challenge series has been split into components designed to have parallels to games industry recruitment.
Development Project |
Skills Assessment |
Panel Interview |
Challenge Categories
Learn about each of our gamedev challenge categories and the type of projects you’ll be developing.
What’s in it for you?
Winners, finalists and high achievers can greatly increase their visibility and employability
Partner studios and several external studios regularly hire directly from Search For A Star
Win big prizes from our partners, including games, software and gear!
Develop a portfolio project using a real brief and have your work seen by members of industry
Build a portfolio piece based on what studios are looking for and improve skills with feedback from professionals in your field
Experience interview panels with expert judges from the industry.
Get your skills showcased in front of some of the industry’s leading games studios and make a big impression!