Steam Just Added Demos For Some Of The Year's Most Unique New Games At The Game Awards

"When it comes to big game showcases, Day of the Devs has always been one of the most exciting. Now in its second decade, the curated festival of indie games has grown from an offshoot of developer Double Fine to its own non-profit, and it's still one of the best places to learn about the most interesting upcoming indie games. Ahead of The Game Awards 2025, the latest iteration of Day of the Devs shared more than 20 new games to keep an eye on."

"Beastro is an intriguing stew of ideas combining deckbuilding RPGs, cooking sims, and minigame collections. In Beastro, you run a restaurant for heroes called Caretakers, growing or fishing your own ingredients, cooking them up through varied minigames, and assembling dishes that suit each adventurer's tastes. The ingredients you choose determine which cards the Caretaker will bring into battle, which are presented as charming puppet shows you then play through as the adventurer regales you about what happened on the road."

"If you think about it, a frog, with all of its jumping prowess, is the perfect protagonist for a platformer. Big Hops seems to get that, combining its froggy hero's propensity for hopping with his sticky tongue, which can be used to grab items, launch him toward platforms, and even (for some reason) pick locks. Collectibles throughout the game also let you reshape the environment by adding vines, grapple points, and other interactable objects so you can make your own path through levels."

Day of the Devs operates as a curated indie games festival that evolved into a non-profit and now marks its second decade. The festival showcased more than twenty new games ahead of The Game Awards 2025. Seven standout titles include diverse genres such as cooking simulations and platformers. Beastro mixes deckbuilding RPG mechanics with cooking minigames, ingredient gathering, and puppet-show battle sequences; a demo is available on Steam. Big Hops features a frog protagonist using jumps and a sticky tongue for traversal and puzzle mechanics; collectibles enable environmental reshaping. Luckshot Games announced a January 12, 2026 release date for Big Hops.

Read at Inverse