Numerous students from SETU Carlow are celebrating, after triumphing at the Annual Games Fleadh for 2025.
The Fleadh took place at the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) on 5 March.
The Games Fleadh is Ireland’s premier event celebrating game development, with this year’s theme of “Small World” encouraging students to present projects about insect worlds, small planets, and vast galaxies.
At the Fleadh ‘Starburst’, developed by Gameplay Programmer Ian Perez Bunuel and Digital Artist Riona Kelly, won “Best Game”, and ‘Ant-topia’, created by Assembly Programmers Adam Noonan and Oliwier Jakubiec, won the “Best Game Trailer” award.
The “Best in Original Art Assets” award went to ‘Buzzz vs The Harvesters’, the work of a six-person teamcaptained by Rob McGregor.
The first win at Games Fleadh 2025 was during Robocode, and went to a team of AI Programmers, Kevin Michael, Marie-Elise Ghijsen, and Emma Brennan, all of whom are studying Software Development and Interactive Digital Art Design in Carlow.
Speaking to KCLR News, SETU Programme Director of the Bachelor’s degree in computing in Interactive Digital Art Design Philip Bourke said that the course has a broad appeal.
“One of the things that we’ve noticed as well is that it’s actually very popular for girls”, he noted, continuing that “a lot of boys would tend to go into computer science, but 50% of our students are girls.”
Commenting on the output of the course, Bourke said that “what we’re outputting from this course is really technical artists, so people that are ready for the Visual Effects (VFX) industry, in either film or games, but they’re really skilled technical artists.”
