Festival Patrons

We are incredibly grateful for the support of our Festival Patrons

Norwich Games Festival is a free, family-friendly celebration of video games, brought to you by The Forum.

Norwich Games Festival is a non-profit event run by The Forum Trust, the self-financing charitable organisation which manages The Forum building in Norwich. All money raised by the festival is invested back into the event.

Dan Scales

Daniel is a Principal Gameplay Developer at Saltwater Games, originally from Norwich. Daniel has worked on a number of titles from indie games such as 10 Second Ninja X to VR titles - having most recently finished work on Peaky Blinders: The King's Ransom.
Daniel has a huge passion for making games accessible to everyone and encouraging young people to explore careers in games; having produced the Norwich Games Festvial with The Forum for a number of years. In 2019 his work on the festival saw him nominated for the MCV 30 under 30 award.

Stuart Ashen

Stuart Ashen is a comedian from Norwich, whose YouTube channel “Ashens” boasts over 1.5 million subscribers. He has written two books on video games: Terrible Old Games You’ve Probably Never Heard Of and its follow-up Attack Of The Flickering Skeletons. He also co-wrote and starred in the comedy films The Quest For The GameChild and The Polybius Heist.

"I’m very pleased to be an ambassador for the Norwich Games Festival. It’s a great event for both gaming enthusiasts and the general public alike – it’s wonderful to have a local event like this."

Stuart Ashen

Melissa Phillips

Melissa Phillips is an Executive Coach and Leadership Psychologist having accumulated 10 years of industry experience at the senior management level. Melissa's professional journey encompasses significant contributions across diverse sectors within the Games Industry. She has worked as Head of Studio, Operations Director and Consultant across a number of different Game Studios and Organisations as well as previously holding the position of Games Programme Manager at BAFTA Games where she worked to helped champion the BAFTA Crew and BAFTA Young Game Designer Programmes.

Melissa founded the Games Leadership Academy (www.gamesleadershipacademy.com), an online training Academy dedicated to producing Leadership resources and training materials for the Games Industry. She is an experienced Coach and Consultant who holds a Diploma in Coaching from the University of Cambridge and is also an Associate Member of the Association for Coaching, a Coach Member of the International Coaching Federation and a Graduate Member of the British Psychological Society. Melissa currently acts as a Consultant for independent studios and is actively making games.

“I started the Games Leadership Academy because it felt like we were having lots of conversations in the Games Industry about what needed to change, but there were few spaces in which this awareness could be grown and come directly from the Games Industry itself.”

Melissa Phillips