This forum's going to be active for the next couple of months while the challenges are open, but will still be around even after submissions close, so lets get some intros going.

The games industry may be huge, but the dev community itself can feel surprisingly small. Between networking events, conferences, meetups and just moving around between studios, you'll meet a lot of the same people.

The people in here are from universities across the UK and Europe, all studying and working in similar areas. You're all part of the same generation of the games industry & most of you are probably going to be bumping into each other in future. This time next year you could be working together, a few years on you could be recommending each other for new roles. Later down the line, you might even be leading your own project & be looking for someone you know to join you on it...

Some simple intros to begin - who are you, where are you from & what made you decide to get into game animation?

So, I'll start..

I'm Dan, I'm your main support contact for Search For A Star & the voice behind the Grads In Games account. I've been doing marketing with Grads In Games & Search For A Star for nearly 4 years, doing a lot of the behind-the-scenes work for the challenges. If you come along to the showcase event in April, I'll probably be the one making sure everything's in the right place & calming down nervous finalists.

I don't really do game dev aside from sometimes messing with Unity or Gamemaker, most of my creative work is in weird audio & sound design. Luckily, I (and by proxy, you) have access to a network of hundreds of professional game devs, artists and animators to help out with SFAS.

I try to be as helpful as possible, so if you need anything you can either get me on the support forum, email me at dan@gradsingames.com or find me on Twitter.