As the who’s who of gaming descended on SAGE (South Australian Game Exhibition) 2024 last month, Jonathon Anderson-Wills (BCreatArts(DigitalMedia) ’21) of Jonniemadeit collected the inaugural SAGE Elevate Award in front of a 2000-strong crowd for Uncle Unco, a single-player game involving a little, fluffy ball with arms that rolls through a wacky and whimsical world.
As cute as it may sound, hundreds of hours behind the computer screen have gone into creating what is clearly a viable product, recognised by an industry panel made up of digital media identities. With a fast-approaching release date on PC, Android, Mac and iPhone, the accolade has encouraged Jonathon to continue pursuing the project further.
“The recognition is huge! My life over the past week or so has just been bananas in terms of people wanting to get in contact and find out more about my work and understand the artistic process,” says Jonathon.
Jonniemadeit’s first foray into the competitive world of gaming was a horror-themed release in 2022, which unexpectedly garnered two million views online.
“That was the first taste of thinking, I’m doing something other people will enjoy and there will be a successful path for me doing this post-university,” says Jonathon.
“To then have my second prototype, Uncle Unco, win the award before the game is even out there was just amazing.”
Taking inspiration from his brother, a Flinders Education graduate, and their love of gaming growing up, Jonathon was on the hunt for a game development course unlike what he had found in high school, where IT and art are typically split. Flinders’ Digital Media degree was the perfect marriage of the two, allowing Jonathon to learn the skills he needed to enter the workforce.
“I split my load up so that I would have extra time to work on learning Unity, the game engine,” says Jonathon.
“I met some great lecturers, notably Shane Bevan and Jason Bevin from the Digital Media Department. They were very encouraging and allowed me to pursue my own research projects, while keeping me focused if I strayed off the path – which in game development and IT, you can easily get caught down a rabbit hole!
“Now as I’m navigating my way through the independent game industry, a lot of the skills that I thought at the time were superfluous, have actually become some of the more important skills that I often rely and lean on.”
Although it’s a competitive market full of talented developers and designers, Jonathon’s advice to students is to keep an open mind and use the resources at Flinders – the lecturers really do want to see you succeed!
“As one of my lecturers said, with these creative industries and IT-focused endeavours, you just have to keep creating, keep making,” says Jonathon.
“So, I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing, but also continue to learn and bring my work up to that next level to try and compete on the world stage.”
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