Screen Australia has granted over $1.5 million in funding to 11 game projects through its Games: Expansion Pack fund.
The news comes after the Federal Government launched its new “Revive” National Cultural Policy, which committed to introducing a Digital Games Tax Offset and handing out an additional $12 million to digital game developers and small to medium indie studios over the next four years.
Meanwhile, Screen Australia’s existing Games: Expansion Pack fund dished out direct funding to original Australian games with budgets below $500,000 and initially launched in March 2022.
The first round of funding helped distribute over $4 million to 30 titles, and now the fund has been used to finance even more titles spanning genres including VR, horror, platformer, puzzler, rhythm game, and more.
Among the latest titles to receive funding are Bilkins’ Folly, a treasure hunting puzzle adventure; Conscript, a survival title set during the First World War; Ghost Cam, a spooky dreamscape that sees players search for spirits in what (at first) appears to be an abandoned bedroom; and Trash, an online co-op survival adventure set in a post-human world.
The full list of funded titles can be found over on the Screen Australia website.