Athy student wins award at game creation competition

AN ATHY student was part of a team from South East Technological University (SETU) that triumphed at the annual Games Fleadh 2025, which took place at the Technological University of the Shannon on 5 March.

Games Fleadh is an event that celebrates games development, bringing together the brightest minds from the country’s higher education institutions to showcase their incredible talent and creativity. The award-winning student teams, backed by skilled programmers, digital artists and designers, demonstrated mastery in advanced techniques. Their mastery resulted in highly immersive and captivating gameplay experiences that left a lasting impression on judges from Electronic Arts and raylib.

Ramon Santamaria, creator of raylib library, was a guest speaker and judge at the 2025 competition, sharing invaluable insight and expertise with students.

One SETU student from Athy, Rachel O’Connor, took home an award in the highly-commended category for her team.

Rachel, who is known to be very involved in her course and the SETU community, said: “I’m currently in my third year of studying Interactive Digital Art and Design in SETU in Carlow.

“Our game ‘Hivebreaker’ was made by Leo Bolaks, Ethan Hislop, Erika Rechtackova and myself. Hivebreaker is an alien platformer shooter, with the aim of the game being to survive and get as many kills as possible. It’s harder than it sounds!

“Taking part in Games Fleadh was a lot of stress in terms of getting everything done on time, but seeing how much people enjoyed our game made it all worth it!

“I’m very grateful to have such an amazing team, and I’m glad our efforts paid off,” she concluded.