summer

With both Summer Game Fest 2025 and Steam Next Fest wrapping up, each member of the GamesIndustry.biz team suddenly has many more games clogging up their wishlists than ever.

While the blockbuster picks of SGF were fairly self-evident – 007: First Light, Pragmata, Onimusha: Way of the Sword, and Resident Evil: Requiem all impressed – the indie game pool was much deeper, with new reveals across a variety of showcases. Many of those games had accompanying demos for the public to try out, too.

Below, we selected some highlights from the two events.

Samuel Roberts, Editorial Director

Out at SGF’s Play Days event in LA – which was wonderfully quiet and tasteful as games industry events go, by the way, and pleasantly far from the overcrowded hell of the later public years of E3 – I had a spare day to catch games, which was enough to see plenty of highlights.

The winner of the indie game bunch for me was Mixtape, the next game by The Artful Escape studio Beethoven & Dinosaur. Developer Johnny Galvatron mentioned Dazed and Confused and Ferris Bueller as two reference points following my hands-on demo, which roughly matches what I played.

Set during three young friends’ final night together before they part ways, it’s set to a pricey-seeming licensed soundtrack, with songs by The Cure, Joy Division, The Smashing Pumpkins and more bringing each chapter to life.

Mixtape combines adventure game-style narrative sections with set piece-y minigames: skateboarding and controlling a runaway shopping trolley were part of the demo, with each section set to a different music track. The mechanics behind these sections aren’t particularly deep, but they’re great fun to watch. The shutter-y, stop motion-style animation style is beautiful, too, making it a visual standout of SGF.

Annapurna Interactive also had the hack-and-slash game Bounty Star at Play Days. Think Armored Core with more Devil May Cry-style combat, along with shooting and dodging. Mixing gig economy commentary, mechs, and westerns, it’s got a particular flavour that should please fans of games with a Capcom lineage.

I also had a lot of love for Thick as Thieves from Warren Spector’s Otherside Entertainment, a PvPvE game where four players are dispatched into a map in pursuit of a (randomised) big score. The competitive element means you could feasibly wait for another player to avoid all the guards, disarm the traps, and take the loot, before ambushing them on the way out. But that’s just one way to play.

It’s a fresh reframing of the player choice-centric immersive sim genre from pioneers Spector (Deus Ex) and executive producer Paul Neurath (the first two Thief games). This genre almost never performs well commercially, despite a relatively high percentage of them being among the best games ever made.

It’s my hope that the specific multiplayer spin catches on beyond its usual crowd, because I like seeing this generation of PC game design master succeed in the modern age. It looked like a lot of fun, and pretty snackable as immersive sim experiences go.

One of the pieces of loot you can steal in Thick as Thieves is a wheel of cheese – I’m in.

Now for my Steam Next Fest demo picks, which I’ll admit are all obvious shouts. There’s Cleared Hot, a helicopter game inspired by Desert Strike and similar classics, only with a winch that lets players pick up and throw vehicles, enemies, and other objects for a physics-y twist.

There’s also a ‘dodge’ button – I assume all military helicopters have one of those installed – that gives combat a bit more of a contemporary action game flavour, as missiles fly past in quick succession. The voice acting is pretty ’90s (deliberately so), but I had a great time with the demo. On the wishlist it goes.

Mina the Hollower is the long-awaited new game from Shovel Knight developers Yacht Club Games. Fans of the magnificent Game Boy Color Zelda games will be in heaven: the art and sound design riff heavily on those masterpieces, to dazzling effect. Mina is perhaps 10% harder as a combat game than I’d like, but it remixes the old Zelda mechanics in ways that will delight veteran players. That game launches on October 31.

Next up, a shout out to a game that probably doesn’t need more attention: I’m utterly convinced Devolver Digital and Kenny Sun’s game Ball x Pit is going to be the indie game to beat in 2025’s GOTY lists (well, apart from Blue Prince).

A cross between Vampire Survivors, Breakout, and Bubble Bobble, it’s a game of managing vast waves of enemies marching towards you by firing ball-shaped projectiles into the crowd. Those projectiles can then be levelled up or even combined into new powers, giving the game huge potential in terms of offensive possibilities.

This stole two hours of my Saturday, no problem. I can see this mirroring Vampire Survivors’ success – it’s exactly as addictive.

Finally, the return of a PlayStation Portable puzzle classic in Enhance’s Lumines Arise was one of my most exciting hands-on experiences at SGF. For fans of Tetris Effect, this gives the Lumines match-four formula a similar injection of astonishing audiovisual splendour. I’m only gutted I can’t play it in VR on Meta Quest 3, but I’ll definitely check it out on either PS5 or PC when it launches in late 2025.

Sophie McEvoy, Staff Writer

While I’m still eagerly awaiting one of my picks from last year (that being Mixtape), there were lots of indie games to add to my ongoing summer wishlist.

For me, the best indie games are the ones that provide a dose of nostalgia. Watching a tiny gecko traverse the grassy landscape of a forgotten ruin took me right back to exploring the realms of Spyro the Dragon on PS1.

Obviously, Inserin’s Gecko Gods is nothing like the classic platformer, but there’s something about the chill vibes and the detailed movement of the titular reptile that hits the spot for me. That and the little tippy taps of the geckos’ feet as it explores forgotten ruins, solves puzzles, and finds bugs to eat.

Another puzzle game that caught my eye was Poti Poti Studios’ Is This Seat Taken? I can be a little indecisive at times, and this game takes that to a whole other level.

Essentially you’re tasked with sorting people into groups according to their preferences in certain situations. Whether that’s what seats people prefer on a train, cinema, restaurant, or even a wedding. The art style looks absolutely adorable, and the scenarios that unfold as you seat certain people together looks hilarious.

Moving away from puzzle-solving, Team Empereintes’ Fireside Feelings caught my attention from its cosy atmosphere and unique premise. The premise of this game, which is described as a “mental health experience” is sitting by a fire and sharing your thoughts.

As someone who struggles with keeping up a mental wellness routine, this feels like a fresh take on mindfulness that my brain will benefit from. Maybe I’ll learn a little more about myself in the process, too.

Lewis Packwood, Features Editor

Unlike Samuel, I wasn’t able to swan about in Los Angeles enjoying all the lovely new games ‘in the flesh’ (silicon?), but there were a fair few that caught my eye on the various indie showcases.

As Samuel and Sophie have already mentioned, Mixtape looks like an absolute gem, with a trailer that delivers a gut punch of summer nostalgia. Given the developer’s pedigree, this is sure to be a winner – and that art style is just mesmerising. How would you describe it? A kind of painterly stop motion, perhaps? However they’ve done it, it looks gorgeous.

Speaking of beautiful art styles, At Fate’s End from Thunder Lotus retains the studio’s signature hand-painted animation look, in a similar vein to their previous game, Spiritfarer. This one is a lot more fighty though, more akin to their underrated hack and slash Metroidvania Sundered. It also features a protagonist who produces a sword from her throat, which is something you definitely don’t see every day. Unless you live in a circus.

Garbage Country from Noio somehow mixes elements of Thomas van den Berg’s previous titles: the chilled-out post-apocalyptic plant-growing game Cloud Gardens and the tower defence behemoth that is the Kingdom series. Imagine Cloud Gardens, but where you’re barrelling around in a customisable truck and stopping occasionally to do a bit of tower defence. Intriguing.

I love the premise of Relooted, where the aim is to reclaim African artefacts from Western museums: the museums are fictional, but the artefacts are real. The trailer makes it look wonderfully fluid and fun, with the aim being to dash in and out as quickly as possible while swinging off light fittings and ducking lasers.

Finally, I have to give a shout out to Moomintroll: Winter’s Warmth, Hyper Games’ follow-up to Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley. We only got the tiniest of teaser trailers for this one, but it was enough. The first game was like a hug in video game form, and no doubt this sequel will offer more of the same. And gosh darn, don’t we all need a hug right now?

Vikki Blake, Reporter

I’m going to start at the end: End of Abyss, to be precise. We barely saw a minute of it, but I’m already in love. I have a natural inclination for darker vibes, and End of Abyss has that in spades. The melancholy, the weirdness, the bonkers enemy design – I’m in.

For that same reason, Fractured Blooms also got an omg-yes from me, too. While maybe not quite as fourth-wall-breaking as Doki Doki Literature Club (the “Plus” version of which developer Serenity Forge publishes), the idea of jumping into a homestead life sim that slowly dissolves into something else when you’re not looking is Oh-So My Kind Of Thing. “Check the cabinets,” instructs your cheery on-screen HUD. “Check the freezer.” “Harvest 5 strawberries.” “Run.” “Don’t look.” “Obey her mouth.” I must know more.

Image credit: Serenity Forge

And then there’s ILL. Yes, the one with the baby things. I mean, I was in even before they used the word “dismemberment.”

Yikes. This is very different from everyone else’s list. For what it’s worth, plenty of colorful, non-murdery games caught my eye, too! Out of Words‘ stop-motion conceit is wonderful – there is no such thing as too many co-op platformers, and this one looks divine – and congrats, Felt That: Boxing; you may be the world’s first sports game to ever pique my interest. And like Lewis, I, too, am bewitched by the idea of Relooted; I’ve enjoyed wasting many an hour in Payday, so I cannot deny the draw of a heist game with a heart. Maybe we’ll learn a little something, too, eh?

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