A pair of teenage brothers from Saltney have reached the final of the BAFTA Young Game Designers Competition.

Sixteen-year-old Joseph and 14-year-old Moses Burton were shortlisted for their game Stepfish – a retro-style platform game where players are challenged to navigate a series of platforms and avoid tricky obstacles.

The nationwide game design competition for 10-18-year-olds aims to inspire game designers and game-makers of the future by giving young people the chance to design and create their own game and develop it with industry professionals.

Delighted

The Calday Grange Grammar School pupils are thrilled to have got so far.

“I did this for the fun of making a game, I never expected to be in the top 10,” said Joseph, who programmed the game and wrote music for it.

He is no stranger to programming, having used his skills to speed up his maths homework last year by making a programme to solve polynominal equations.

While Moses drew the graphics for Stepfish, and hopes to pursue a career in computer animation.

Bright futures

The talented brothers have made headlines before, as Joseph passed his Maths GCSE when he was just eight and Moses passed when he was 10 years old.

Their parents Stephanie and Martin Burton are delighted by their achievement, even if it meant having to drag them away from their computers at dinner time.

“We had no idea that they were writing a game, we thought they were playing Minecraft,” Stephanie said.

Awards ceremony

Joseph and Moses will find out if they have won at a special awards ceremony at BAFTA headquarters on Saturday (July 23)

The initiative, now in its sixth year, presents awards in two main categories: the Game Concept Award, for entrants who submit a written idea for a new game; and the Game Making Award, for entrants who submit a game they have made using computer software.

The winners of both strands, in the 10-14 and 15-18 age ranges, will receive a host of prizes, including further development of their game by industry experts.

Harvey Elliott, chair of the BAFTA Games Committee, said: “Each year we are overwhelmed by the calibre of talent identified in this competition, and this year is no exception, with our finalists clearly among the most promising young games designers in the country.”

Stepfish is free to download by clicking here.