Frosty Games Fest
2025
Frosty Games Fest is a showcase of indie video games made in ANZ.
It debuted in 2025 as part of Geoff Keighley’s Summer of Games Fest and reached an audience of over 120K viewers in it’s first 28 hours.
2026’s showcase would not have been possible without our mates
at Screen Australia
Client
Frosty Games Fest
Year
2025
Frosty - Our silly little gamer guy
Frosty came to be after MANY discussions about branding between Amy Potter and myself. We didn’t want a typical Australian or New Zealand animal or mascot to represent the showcase for fear of alienating one of the participating countries, we also wanted our branding to tell the rest of the world “it may be Summer where you are, but here? it’s FREEZING!”. Frosty had to be it’s own ‘thing’ and inclusive of all of ANZ. After identifying some branding we liked from, mainly, retro ANZ food items, Amy added the phrase ‘seasonal yums’ to our brainstorm document. This lead us both down a rabbit hole of region-specific treats and identifying which food items both countries felt ‘belonged’ to them. After a ton of sketches of iced coffee, hot chocolates, iceypoles, lollies, and various other goodies, we landed on a soft-serve ice cream.
When I sketched the first Frosty sketch I knew we had found our little guy. He sprung onto the page from my trusty Uniball Gel Pen fully-formed and ready for us to adorn in whatever winterwear (or Northface jacket) we wanted. He remains mostly unchanged from that first sketch so much so that I’m unsure if I really designed him, or if he was waiting for the right time to introduce himself to us.
Brand Design
2025 was our first year as a showcase during a time that was competitive for viewership. We knew we had to punch above our weight to grab the audience our developers deserved. So to accomplish this I set about creating a slick, vectored brand that felt unique while also looking like it belonged alongside other world class industry showcases.
I knew our bold blue and orange palette would have us sticking out from the crowd of events, so to compliment and contrast other events I took further inspiration from the retro ANZ food packaging we had researched while creating Frosty. Circles, bold shapes, iconography, typography, and pattern were utilised to give our showcase a retro, but modern aesthetic that would stand out from the crowd.
Stickers were a later addition and inspired by the stickers you would find on fruit, they were a fun way to communicate core information like our slogan and showcase dates to viewers without them having to search for it on our assets. They also fit in nicely with Summer of Game’s visual assets and logos.
All design assets had to be modular so we could roll them out quickly and within scope across our website, Steam pages, mailing list, social media tiles, and other assets. We never wanted the viewer to have the impression that it was a one-person design team frantically making these on her laptop, but rather have the showcase come across as a calm, cool, and collected showcase showing off the very best in ANZ indie games. Assets also had to be simple so that our production house could easily use them to produce the showcase without us having to make additional assets for them.
Steam Event
Assets created for the 2025 Steam event. Each showcase has a corresponding Steam event showcasing games included in the showcase, recently released ANZ titles, and showcase games with significant marketing beats. Assets include the event page capsules, sponsor assets, banners, and a special badge for participating developers to put on their games Steam Page.
Participant Assets
Every showcase Frosty partners with a number of folks across the ANZ video game community in a variety of capacities including co-host segments, co-streaming, and, of course, developers. So that they can share that they are apart of the showcase, a series of modular assets are created. For co-hosts we create a bespoke tile that can be used across social media with the hosts headshot and requested username, and for developers and co-streamers, we created a PNG template for them to insert their own avatar or participating game key art.
Jibbits
I wanted a secondary asset we could use to make our elements feel more full. After creating a base set of icons for our website, I expanded on this collection and created a series of silly shapes and ANZ seasonal gaming icons that Team Frosty refers to as ‘Jibbits’.
Jibbits are used in a variety of ways, from patterned backgrounds, to stickers, to fun little add-ons when we feel something needs some extra visual interest.
