Ukie's Game Changers, streamed live on Twitch on Aug 6th, raised over £1,000* in donations for GamesAid and Mermaids, in an evening showcasing the best of established and emerging UK games music talent.
*and at the time of writing, still climbing
The evening saw fantastic performances and contributions from five of the UK's best and brightest female composers and musicians, all hosted live from London’s Loading Bar.
- A high-energy Eurodance set from Circuit Bird kicked the evening off with a bang, and featured a mix of slamming original songs like Tarmacadam and some incredible covers, including George S. Clinton's masterpiece Mortal Kombat from the 1995 film.
- Up next was the hugely talented and genre-spanning Ninichi and showcasing three original pieces from her recent game soundtracks for Mystic Tales, Mystic Legends and Arcadium. She also contributed a stunning pre-recorded live performance with the musician Xelafish, which looked just as beautiful as it sounded.
- Launching straight back in after the break was the all-singing, all-dancing tour de force of Nyokeë, with a live-as-it-happens audio-visual performance incorporating 8-bit synth and Kawaii-bass sounds with game visuals and some amazing fashion. Her incredible set was only improved by the inclusion of a dancing green alien playing an invisible saxophone during her ace closing number 'Dancing... Outer Space'!
- Bringing things back down to Earth, Scottish games composer Luci Holland produced a truly spectacular collaboration with Edinburgh's Tinderbox Collective, combining Zoom-recorded contributions of a whole orchestra of musicians coming together for genuinely breath-taking performances of her original works, 'Plain As Day' and 'Heart of Gardale'. Luci is surely a talent well on the way to having a BAFTA or Ivor Novello award sat on her mantlepiece in the not-too-distant future.
- And finally, we started with a bang but ended with a *supernova* in the shape of an utterly explosive chiptune set from the incredible Chipzel. Her outstanding set well demonstrated why she is recognised world-wide as one of the industry's leading indie game composers, smashing out a relentless run of Gameboy-generated dancefloor fillers, such as 'Spectra' that had us out of our seats and throwing shapes, along with no doubt most of the rest of the audience. Also, bonus dog in the stream!
We hope that these outstanding performances help highlight the incredible work of musicians and the role of music in the creation of games, as well as specifically recognising the importance of the inclusion of women, and a diverse range of people, in creative disciplines across the sector. Hopefully together we can encourage more people from a wider range of backgrounds to consider careers in games.
Ukie are incredibly grateful to our five incredible composers for taking part in Game Changers and their support throughout. We are also especially thankful to our amazing sponsors for the evening, Harmonix and NCSOFT and their upcoming music game FUSER, without which the event would not have been possible.
The full event can still be streamed in full via Twitch by the following links below:
