🎉 Bureauvision 2026 Winners Announced: Celebrating Creativity Across the APS Digital Community
The APS Digital Community Innovation Month is all about exploring new ways to serve Australia through creativity, technology, and collaboration. This year’s Bureauvision contest challenged APS digital professionals to create interactive or immersive AI experiences that reflect life in the public service.
As the official Bureauvision pack explains, the challenge was simple but bold:
“Create an interactive / immersive AI experience about working in the public service.”
And the purpose was even clearer:
“The aim: spur discussion and reflection.”
In 2026, three judges selected three winners, each choosing the entry they felt best captured the spirit of innovation, creativity, and APS storytelling.
New Analytics is proud to be among them.
🏆 Judge’s Choice Winner – Public Quest
Created by: Anne New, New Analytics
Judge: Jade Carson
Play here: https://bureau-quest-play.base44.app/
Public Quest is a pixel‑art side‑scrolling adventure that transforms a week in the Australian Public Service into a playful, interactive experience. Players run, jump, chat, decide, and deliver their way through APS life navigating inboxes, deadlines, red tape, teamwork, and the occasional elevator hazard.
The game aligns perfectly with Bureauvision’s ethos:
“Is it fun? Does it make you think? Would a public servant secretly love it?”
Built using AI‑assisted pixel art, Base44, Copilot, ChatGPT, Photopea, and GameMaker, Public Quest blends humour, authenticity, and capability uplift. It’s designed to be experienced in 2-4 minutes, matching the contest guidelines:
“Entries should be designed so that they can be experienced in 2–4 minutes.”
This entry stood out for its creativity, polish, and delightful weirdness exactly what Bureauvision encourages:
“Ordinary is overrated. Surprise the committee.”
🐱 Judge’s Choice Winner – Consensus
Created by: Nathaniel Jeffrey
Judge: Terrance Ingram
Play here: https://claude.ai/public/artifacts/cf11c75d-cd74-4dba-a566-9fd5c711055b
Consensus is a charming, chaotic, and surprisingly insightful short game about herding cats literally. Players attempt to guide a group of bewhiskered stakeholders toward agreement on a tabled document.
This entry is a perfect metaphor for public service collaboration: unpredictable, funny, and occasionally impossible. It embodies the Bureauvision spirit of joyful experimentation:
“Joy is a legitimate metric.”
The judges praised its humour, simplicity, and clever representation of stakeholder management a daily reality for many APS teams.
🧭 Judge’s Choice Winner – IM2026 Bureauvision Platformer
Created by: Luka M.
Judge: Cassandra Hawkins
Play here: https://im2026-bureauvision.lukamusicki.chatgpt.site/
Luka’s entry is a platformer that lets players experience life as a bureaucrat, navigating hurdles, challenges, and obstacles on the journey toward promotion. It’s fast, fun, and instantly relatable to anyone who has ever worked in government.
The experience reflects Bureauvision’s core design principles:
“Entries are to be an immersive and/or interactive experience about working in the public service, created with AI.”
With its retro platformer style and clever APS‑themed obstacles, this entry stood out for its creativity and humour.
🌐 Why Bureauvision Matters
The Bureauvision contest is more than a competition – it’s a celebration of creativity across the APS. The official pack highlights the values underpinning every entry:
“Service. Integrity. Compassion. Public service making a difference.”
It also encourages entrants to embrace experimentation:
“Brilliant or baffling? Both good.”
This year’s winners demonstrated:
- bold experimentation
- user‑centred design
- playful digital storytelling
- meaningful reflection on APS life
- creative use of AI tools
Each entry offered a unique perspective on public service work from pixel‑art quests to cat‑herding diplomacy to bureaucratic platforming.
🚀 What’s Next for Public Quest?
With Bureauvision complete, New Analytics is already exploring enhancements to Public Quest, including:
- expanded APS environments
- new NPC interactions
- capability‑focused mini‑quests
- accessibility improvements
- agency‑specific storylines
The goal is to continue supporting APS capability uplift through interactive, engaging digital experiences.
❤️ Thank You to the APS Digital Community
A huge thank you to the judges – Jade Carson, Cassandra Hawkins, and Terrence Ingram and to everyone who played, shared feedback, and supported the project.
As the pamphlet beautifully puts it:
“Imagining better ways to serve Australia.”
New Analytics is proud to contribute to that mission.