Everything you need to know about Viewfinder after 2024 Bafta Games Awards success

Created by Sad Owl Studios and published by Thunderful Games, the single player adventure game took home the prize for Best British Game as well as New Intellectual Property during the awards which took place on Thursday, April 11. It follows previous wins at the Ukie Video Game Awards as well as the Scottish Games Awards.

Viewfinder initially attracted attention in 2020 when Matt Stark, Sad Owl Studios' game director, posted a clip of its picture taking technology on social media. At this point in time, Stark was a second year student at Abertay University and Viewfinder was just a side project.

However, the overwhelmingly positive reaction to his prototype led to Stark dropping out of university and focusing on developing the game full time.

Here’s everything you need to know about the Scottish-made game.

What is Viewfinder?

Viewfinder is a first person puzzle game with a narrative, inspired by titles such as Portal and The Talos Principle.

Set in a simulated world, players will be introduced to a Polaroid camera which can take 2D images of anything in the environment and then manifest them into a 3D world. The narrative is player driven and flexible enough to be skipped by those more interested in solving the game’s more than 70 puzzles, though Cait the cat will occasionally pop up to serve you with context.

The puzzles have no single solution, and developers have made sure to add in elements to help calm players down such as the cat - which should be pet - and to encourage curiosity.

Where to play Viewfinder

Viewfinder is available on both PC and PlayStation.

Bafta among latest award wins for Viewfinder

Viewfinder has won several awards since it was released. These include Technical Achievement at the Scottish Games Awards 2023 and UK Game of the Year - as well as Best UK Console Game - at the Ukie Video Game Awards.

In addition, it was nominated at The Game Awards and the Golden Joystick Awards while receiving an honourable mention for innovation during the Game Developers Choice Awards.

Its most recent success comes from the 2024 Bafta Games Awards where it won Best British Game and New Intellectual Property, even though though Stark joked: “We had zero speeches planned, not two.”

While onstage receiving the award for Best British Game, in the midst of thanking everyone involved in the project, Viewfinder’s executive producer Georg Backer even took the time to thank Stark’s parents.

“Also, I want to thank Matt’s parents. Because otherwise this would also not have happened. So, thank you Matt’s parents.”