The Melbourne Queer Games Festival is an annual

LGBT ' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity. The LGBT term is a ...

game festival held in

Melbourne, Victoria Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung–Taungurung language, Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the St ...

, Australia. It was founded in 2018 and is held in October as a part of the

Melbourne International Games Week Melbourne International Games Week is the largest game professional and consumer communication and networking platform in Asia Pacific, hosted by Creative Victoria. It comprises a confluence of events for three areas of interest, business, consumer ...

. It showcases video and tabletop games from around the world that feature LGBT gameplay elements The festival is volunteer led and in addition to appealing to the queer gaming community and raise the profile of queer games, they're working toward reclaiming the phrase "gay games".

Format

The festival publishes a showcase of games submitted, a livestream of games being played, and a series of juried awards and launched with fifty games in its inaugural year. In 2018 it ran a "Bring It Back" event highlighting an older game, Lesbian Spider-Queens of Mars.

Jury-voted awards

The Festival recognizes several categories of awards: technical, jury, bronze, silver and gold. {, class="wikitable sortable plainrowheaders" , style="white-space: nowrap;" , +Awards and nominations at the Melbourne Queer Games Festival ! Year !! Work !! Author !! Award , - , style="text-align:center;" width:50em; rowspan="5" , 2023 , ''Please Be Happy'' , Arimia , Gold Medal , - , ''Funny Walk – You're So Tense!!'' , Vi , Silver Medal , - , ''two men go on a date and don't fall in love'' , littlerat , Bronze Medal , - , ''It Started With Hairs'' , SuperBiasedGary , Bronze Medal , - , ''Sporal'' , Mimosa Echard , Technical Achievement Award , - , style="text-align:center;" width:50em; rowspan="7" , 2022 , ''talking to my dad'' , Hatim Benhsain , Gold Medal , - , ''TAIPEI METRO QUEST'' , Dri Chiu Tattersfield , Silver Medal , - , ''Angel!'' , Cathy Trang and Sean Wejebe , Bronze Medal , - , ''Buy Hyacinths'' , Benjamilian Swithen, Cow Children Games , Bronze Medal , - , ''He Fucked The Girl Out of Me'' , Taylor McCue , Jury Award , - , ''Queer and Chill'' , Ignacio Bustos , Technical Achievement Award , - , ''Autumn Wish'' , Violet Fairy , Emerging Developer Award , - , style="text-align:center;" rowspan="6" , 2021 , ''Winter'' , Freya Campbell and Elliot Herriman , Gold Award , - , ''Cover Me In Leaves'' , Elliot Herriman , Silver Medal , - , ''What's your gender?'' , radow , Bronze Medal , - , ''Minotaur Hotel'' , MinoAnon , Bronze Medal , - , ''Tong Jyun'' , kc , Technical Achievement Award , - , ''Parcels and Pollen'' , Littlerat , Emerging Developer Award , - , style="text-align:center;" rowspan="5" , 2020 , ''If Found...'' , Llaura McGree , Gold Medal , - , ''spring leaves no flowers'' , kc , Silver Medal , - , ''Queering Spacetime'' , Toto Lin , Bronze Medal , - , ''Monster Sweethearts'' , Sam , Bronze Medal , - , ''Queer Olympix Day 1 - Comsmic Room'' , Lezborado , Jury Award , - , style="text-align:center;" rowspan="4" , 2019 , ''Arcade Spirits'' , Stefan Gagne , Gold Medal , - , ''Grunge'' , Chloe Spencer , Silver Medal , - , ''Play Possum'' , Niamh Noble , Bronze Medal , - , ''Pact'' , Tim Snowdon , Technical Achievement Award , - , style="text-align:center;" rowspan="5" , 2018 , ''Strange Flesh'' , Greatest Bear , Gold Award , - , ''Saving You From Yourself'' , Taylor McCue , Silver Award , - , ''Love on the Peacock Express'' , trainmilfsgame , Bronze Award , - , '' Genderwrecked'' , Ryan Rose Aceae, Heather Robinson, Medley Baxter , Jury Award , - , ''All Walls Must Fall'' , inbetweengames , Technical Achievement Award

References

{{reflist

External links

Melbourne Queer Games Festival website
Video game festivals LGBT culture in Melbourne Video gaming in Australia Festivals in Melbourne LGBT events in Australia