During this year's Sweden Game Conference on October 2-4, the Skövde Academic Game Award (SAGA) will be awarded for the twelfth time. SAGA is Skövde municipality's prize for new computer game talents at the University of Skövde. Three student-developed games - Missing Picture, Project: AMICA and Be my Guest - are nominated and have a chance to win the prize money of SEK 20,000. We have talked to the creators behind the games.

Missing Picture
In Missing Picture, you play as a detective in Sweden during the 80s. Your mission is to go into the woods to investigate the supernatural disappearance of three teenagers. Explore the environment, take photos of clues and solve the mystery.
The game was created in just 10 weeks during the Game Project 2 course in spring 2024.
The group behind the game calls itself the Breakfast Club.
- The name comes from a joke with the group sitting on the opposite side of the corridor from our group room during the project. We used to steal their lunch post-it notes and one day we came back from lunch and our whole door was covered with post-it notes with "breakfast" written on them, so we just accepted the name and became the Breakfast Club. That it happened to fit well with the game's 80s theme as it directly translates to Breakfast Club was something we only realized later.
How does it feel to be nominated for SAGA?
- During the development of the game, we have noticed that detective games are a niche genre and it is therefore very nice to receive such positive feedback on our game. Everyone in the group is extremely happy about the nomination and looks forward to showcasing the game at Sweden Game Conference.
What would it mean to you if you won?
- It would be an honor to have all our hard work recognized and a very good motivation to keep working on the game.
What is happening with Missing Picture right now?
- Right now we are mainly working on polishing the game as much as possible. But there are parts of the game that didn't make it into this version so it's still a bit unclear what the future of the game looks like.
Watch the trailer for Missing Picture on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVEKjsnsbg0&t=1s
Download Missing Picture from itch.io https://kevin-jernberg.itch.io/missing-picture

Project: AMICA
Project: AMICA is a love letter to the 90s, a combination of Doom, Quake, Mega Man Legends and Sonic. In AMICA, you take control of "SID", an android on the hunt for the dictator General Genant Kekaha. The player explores large open levels and battles various robotic enemies in a first-person perspective. In the levels there are a variety of power-ups that the player can collect and use to their advantage, such as "double jump", "block", "punch".
The aesthetic tone of AMICA is colorful and hopeful, like Sonic and Mega Man, while gameplay takes inspiration from old-school shooters like Quake and Metroid Prime.
The group behind the game calls itself dofhouse and started developing the game during the course Game Project 3, spring 2024.
- However, we had already started planning the game before the course started.
How does it feel to be nominated for SAGA?
- It's absolutely fantastic! This has been a bit of a dream for us, so it's really great to see our game getting this kind of attention. It's an incredible feeling to see so many people appreciate the idea of the game.
What would it mean to you if you won?
- It would mean a lot to us if we won! Since 2022, we have been in contact with the start-up activities at Science Park Skövde and wanted to form a company. If we won, it would really help us with start-up capital to form companies and be able to continue working together at AMICA.
What is happening with Project: AMICA right now?
- The game is still under development, but a demo version is available on itch. We published the first prototype online at the Commerce Game Fair in June, and received very good feedback from those who played, both on site and online! Therefore, we have continued with the development during the summer. For SAGA, we have built a new demo that we hope will better demonstrate our vision for the game and how it will work in the end.
- The plan is to continue working on Project: AMICA so that it eventually becomes a full game with up to ten levels and much more content, including a more integrated story, hub world, enemies, allies and more power-ups!
Watch the trailer for Project: AMICA on YouTube: https://youtu.be/F7bo9hJiKSM
Download Project: AMICA from itch.io https://dofhouse.itch.io/project-amica

Be my Guest
Be My Guest is a 2D strategic role-playing game where you play as Zhuo, a girl from an ancient hunter tribe, on a turn-based hunting adventure. The materials you obtain from hunting monsters are used as weapons in battle and as ingredients to cook dishes that enhance Zhuo's abilities. As the game progresses, Zhuo will also use the ingredients to entertain friends, discovering their diets, lives and stories through dinner conversations.
- Our game is inspired by the aesthetics and traditions of China's hunting minority, the Oroq, in the hope of bringing something oriental but unique to the players' experience.
The team behind the game are students of the Game Development master program. The team consists of only two people.
- But we have had many helping hands, special thanks to Xiaoqi for the music and Mathias for adjusting the text.
The duo calls itself Cross Over.
- We crossed a long way from home to express our passion for the game. Since we are not in the same school year, it started as a hobby project for us. We met as roommates last year and discovered that we shared a similar passion for making a long-term game project. We started envisioning the game last November and have continued to develop it since January. Still, it is the University that brought us together, for which we are very grateful.
How does it feel to be nominated for SAGA?
- We are happy and a bit surprised. We were worried that the aesthetic and concept was too oriental for people to understand and enjoy, but we are happy that people here like what we do!
What would it mean to you if you won?
- We would be very honored and grateful. No matter what, we will continue to develop the game and we believe that this nomination already gave us a good opportunity to share the game and get feedback. All this will be put to good use.
What is happening with Be my Guest right now?
- The game now has about 25 minutes of playtime, including a full battle process and scenes at home. We will continue development and hope to have the game on Steam next year.
Watch the trailer for Be my Guest on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&si=hyIYACgHMD57Ghwi&v=O_tf-EPrNG8&feature=youtu.be
Download Be my Guest from itch.io https://gjmxcrossover.itch.io/bemyguest#/