Wednesday 9th September: The Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) celebrates the finalists for the 2026 Australian Game Developer Awards (AGDAs).
Selected from a slate of dozens of Australian-made games released between July 2025 and October 2026, this year’s AGDAs showcases the skill and ingenuity of the Australian game development sector. The calibre of games continues to be high, and several games are under contention in multiple areas, with Bits & Bops (Tempo Lab Games) and Mixtape (Beethoven & Dinosaur) both finalists in five categories.
Ron Curry, CEO of IGEA said, “Every year I watch our industry punch above its weight, and every year it finds a way to punch harder. These finalists are proof; we have ambition, craft and heart from studios of every size, going toe-to-toe with anything coming out of the biggest markets in the world. As an industry, we can all be proud of every name on this list. Congratulations to all our 2026 finalists; you’ve earned every bit of this.”
The four titles nominated for the prestigious Game of the Year award are:
Aether & Iron – Chaos Theory Games with Seismic Squirrel
A Decopunk Narrative RPG, set in an alternate 1930s where anti-gravitational technology has taken cars, roads, and New York City into the sky.
Go-Go Town! – Prideful Sloth
Step into the role of a hands-on mayor and build your town from the ground up, building neighbourhoods, automating logistics and growing your community while juggling day-to-day chaos.
Mixtape – Beethoven & Dinosaur
On their last night together, three friends embark on one final adventure, play through a mixtape of memories, set to the soundtrack of a generation.
Momento – Fat Alien Cat & Nomo Studio with Screen Queensland & Silver Lining Interactive
A cozy room decorator with a twist: the choices you make play out over the course of a lifetime.
This year’s AGDAs ceremony will be an afternoon event, held from 3pm on Wednesday 7th October at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre. After successfully speed-running the 2025 AGDAs, hosts Jordan Raskopoulos and Lee Naimo are back and they’re even more efficient! More details and tickets can be found on the AGDAs website.
IGEA also congratulates the finalists from its other categories:
Excellence in Visual Art
- Bits & Bops – Tempo Lab Games
- Key Fairy – Owl Machine
- Mixtape – Beethoven & Dinosaur
Excellence in Gameplay presented by Hipster Whale
- Bits & Bops – Tempo Lab Games
- Isopod: A Webbed Spin-off – Sbug Games with Supertonic
- Schrodinger’s Cat Burglar – Abandoned Sheep with SuperTonic, Actuator Digital & Translationz
Excellence in Narrative
- Crabmeat – Nicholas McDonnell with Mitchell Pasmans
- Mixtape – Beethoven & Dinosaur
- Schrodinger’s Cat Burglar – Abandoned Sheep with SuperTonic, Actuator Digital & Translationz
Excellence in Sound Design
- Bits & Bops – Tempo Lab Games
- Crabmeat – Nicholas McDonnell with Mitchell Pasmans
- Mixtape – Beethoven & Dinosaur
Excellence in Music presented by APRA AMCOS
- Don’t Stop, Girlypop! – Funny Fintan Softworks with Intr Studio, Subzero Sound & Kwalee
- Malys – Summerfall Studios
- Mixtape – Beethoven & Dinosaur
Excellence in Accessibility presented by VicScreen
- Bits & Bops – Tempo Lab Games
- Key Fairy – Owl Machine
- Schrodinger’s Cat Burglar – Abandoned Sheep with SuperTonic, Actuator Digital & Translationz
Excellence in Extended Reality
- Espire: MR Missions – Digital Lode Immersive Media
- Hyper Bullet – Protostar
- On Point – Actuator Games
Excellence in Impact
- Bluey’s Happy Snaps – Gameloft Brisbane with BBC Studios, Ludo Studio & Bandai Namco
- The Last Werewolf – Unnatural Freaks
- The Walks We Used to Take – Junebug
Excellence in Debut presented by Screen Queensland
- Bits & Bops – Tempo Lab Games
- Key Fairy – Owl Machine
- Momento – Fat Alien Cat & Nomo Studio with Screen Queensland & Silver Lining Interactive
Excellence in Ongoing presented by Sledgehammer Games
- Crossy Road Castle – Hipster Whale
- Forts – EarthWork Games
- Static Shift Racing – Timbo Jimbo
About the AGDAs
The Australian Game Developer Awards (AGDAs) are a national event celebrating outstanding games and individual achievements by the Australian game development community.
Since 2020 The AGDAs have been run by the Interactive Games and Entertainment Association (IGEA) – the peak industry association representing the voice of Australian and New Zealand companies in the computer and video games industry.
For more information, please visit: https://agdas.com.au
About IGEA
IGEA (Interactive Games & Entertainment Association) is the peak industry association representing the voice of Australian and New Zealand companies in the computer and video games industry. IGEA supports the games industry’s business and public policy interests through advocacy, research and education programs. For more information, please visit www.igea.net
