Alfie Wilkinson began his gaming career at 14 by winning the BAFTA Young Game Designers competition with his retro platformer, Egglien. After releasing the game on Steam, it caught the attention of Penguin Pop Games and is now available on PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch. Egglien is showcased in the Science Museum’s Power Up! Exhibition in London and Manchester, alongside other BAFTA Young Game Designers winners and iconic games from the last 50 years.

Alfie continues to support BAFTA Young Game Designers and has co-presented the BAFTA for Best Game Design in 2023 and attended numerous events to speak about his journey. Most recently, Alfie has been on panels at the BAFTA Young Game Designers Showcase in London and Develop.

Sophia is currently on placement at Rare Ltd as a Technical Art Intern, contributing to the development of their new IP, Everwild, while pursuing her studies in Computer Science at the University of Bath.

A two-time finalist of the BAFTA Young Game Designer Competition, Sophia has a keen interest in anime and stylized work within animation and game design across both 2D and 3D art styles.

James is a senior writer/narrative designer at Failbetter Games, creators of the long-running Fallen London universe set in a deep, dark and marvellous Victorian phantasmagorica.

He's worked across many of their titles, including the 14 year old browser game, Fallen London, alongside narrative rougelikes Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies, and the recent visual novel, Mask of the Rose.

James has a background in Medieval Studies, which has served as rich source for inspiration for writing the fantastical, and formed the origin point of many storylines in Failbetter's titles. Born in Liverpool, James has lived in Scotland and London and now resides in Brighton with an occasional cat.

Introducing… Bridie Roman, Senior Producer at Devolver Digital and panellist in our 11.30 talk today about Fantasy Worlds in Game Design at The British Library.

Bridie is a Senior Producer at Devolver Digital working on a variety of games, most recently The Talos Principle 2 and Wizard with a Gun. She is responsible for bringing people together to organise the release of the game, working closely with her developers to ensure that the team feels supported and has everything they need to make a great game. This often involves a lot of time looking at Spreadsheets or JIRA. Prior to joining Devolver Digital she was a Producer at Square Enix External Studios, working on the Just Cause franchise. Once upon a time she reviewed fantasy books for SFX Magazine.

Bridie's fantasy obsession began at age 11 with The Silmarillion and she has continued to love fantasy and fantasy homework ever since. Her favourite author is Robin Hobb, which shows in her 7 copies of Assassin's Apprentice. Other highlights/obsessions are The Traitor Baru Cormorant by Seth Dickinson, The Ninth Rain by Jen Williams and re-reading The Malazan Book of the Fallen. In film and TV she enjoys the world building of Avatar the Last Airbender and Frieren.

As the Head of Games at BAFTA, Luke leads the arts charity’s mission as the foremost global cultural organisation in games, supporting and championing creative talent, advocating for progressive change and celebrating excellence in the craft of making games. As well as the prestigious BAFTA Games Awards, BAFTA provides a year-round programme of events and activities recognising and supporting games professionals, produces world-leading online games content and runs headline new talent initiatives such as BAFTA Breakthrough and the national Young Game Designers competition.