Games Design Competition Finalists' Day 2026

The games design competition final is one of our favourite days at 2Simple, and this year's event at Amazon's London offices was no exception.

The day begins...

When schools began arriving at Amazon, they were shown into their designated “home room" where they could have lunch and store their bags. Schools took it in turns to practise their presentations and check that all technology was working smoothly.

The Judges

We were extremely lucky to have three highly-qualified judges to help decide on a winner:

Joseph McCann

Teacher

Joe, a teacher in Plymouth, loved using 2DIY3D with his class and founded a Games Design Competition. He organised local schools, secured a university venue, and gained tech company support. Impressed by his success, we scaled the competition nationally. Alongside teaching, Joe now supports our CPD team, training teachers across Devon and Cornwall to use Purple Mash.

John Grindall

2Simple

John is an Educational Software Developer here at 2Simple. John worked on the latest development of 2DIY3D, which the children used to build their games with in Purple Mash.

Carl Prescott

AWS

Carl Prescott is a Solutions Architect focusing on gaming customers and use cases at AWS. He started gaming on a Commodore Plus/4 far too many years ago and never really stopped. Carl brings his passion for the industry to his role where he helps game developers Build, Run and Grow their games in the cloud using the wide variety of services AWS offers.

The Presentations

Woodford Green Prep presented their game 'Planet Savers', inspired by an assembly on general waste - the namesake of the game's villain. They explained that their individual passions influenced which role they took on in the team.

Judge John commented on the originality of the game and thought that the baddie's 'General Waste' and 'The Mechanic' "really made it feel like I was exploring a little world inhabited by real characters rather than just walking around a maze picking things up."

Daresbury presented via Teams as they could not make it in person, unfortunately. Determined to make an impact, the team impressed the judges with their game The Beach Protectors. The team hoped their game would encourage people to stop littering.

The Judges loved the puzzle theme to the game and that they were consistent with their theme through their artwork and music choices.

The British School in The Netherlands -

A team of 5 from different classes created their game, Ocean Clean Up, centred around protecting marine life. The team started to present via a pre-recorded video, until they used a 'hotspot' in the video (a feature in 2DIY3D) to teleport Elisabeth to Amazon HQ to complete their presentation in person. Their presentation featured a message from the CEO of Ocean Clean Up and ended with a victory song, which Elisabeth performed live.

Judge Carl remarked: "One of the most professional, enthusiastic, thorough and well-delivered presentations I’ve seen, and I include those delivered by adults who do this for a living! Both video and in-person participants did a fantastic job."

Goodnestone C of E Primary School, aka Team Recycling, created a game in which you are a hero who has to clean up the litter. The team was praised for their hand-drawn graphics, rather than using pre-made ones in 2DIY3D, and their game shone through as the only one to feature an overlay.

Judge Carl said, "My favourite game from an art perspective, almost everything that could be customised had the team’s personal touch added to it."

Flax Hill’s game 'Bin it to win it' was inspired by the Seagulls who regularly visit their school and leave behind litter. Halfway through creating their game, disaster struck and their game was gone! They spoke about how they drew on their core values as a group: resilience, respect and communication to make the game again from scratch. "Our lost game became our greatest success". A highlight for everyone was the rap Flax Hill performed!

The judges loved that the instructions on both levels were super clear and "the difficulty level was perfect, the power-ups weren't just added at random, they were 100% necessary to complete the game which showed a lot of thought and testing went into this game."

St. Joseph’s team explained how they evenly distributed roles based on interests and skills. They used 2Paint to hand-draw elements of the game and Busybeats for the music. Each member of the team also had a voice-cameo in the game as sound effects.

When marketing the game, they came up with the strapline 'Little people saving one big world', which had a great impact on the audience and the judges.

Their slick presentation wowed the judges as did the variety in their game. "What an amazing, varied game, so many different environments and mechanics in just two levels. The coding tricks using player coordinates that made the game feel like it had more like 4 or 5 levels than 2."

Monkfield’s game was created by the school's Digital Leaders and was forest-themed, featuring Lumberjacks as a main feature. The team wanted to make their game accessible for all children, so decided to include audio wherever text appeared during gameplay.

The judges commented on how educational the game was with all the facts that popped up. They also loved the use of keys and portals. It was noted by John that "The difficulty level was perfect, I finished it with 8 seconds to spare!"

Q&A Session and Amazon Tour

After the presentations, children were able to ask the judges questions, and there were some fantastic ones, including how the competition came about and how they each got into their careers. The tour of Amazon's offices was a highlight, with children enjoying the miniature golf course, nap room, and giant foosball table.

The Winners

Before announcing the winning team, the judges commented that all the entries and presentations had been fantastic and that they had a seriously hard time choosing between them.

Judges then announced the winner as being St Joseph's Catholic Primary School.

They commented on the winning entry: "your presentation was just as polished as your game.  You completed an ambitious game that used interesting ideas to add extra details."

Congratulations to St Joseph's, we hope they enjoy their prizes and sharing their winning game with family and friends.

Well done to all our finalists, it was a popular competition with hundreds of children entering!

Thank-you to all those involved, including AWS for hosting the event, and all our Judges. Most importantly, thank-you to all of the students for entering, and to the teachers and parents that supported and encouraged them to do so.