#indie-games

#indie-games

It's really neat that Motion Twin and Evil Empire - the studios behind Dead Cells and its expansions, respectively - are getting to make a proper Castlevania game. While it might not be developing many games in-house anymore, giving external studios the chance to run with its franchises is a very smart move on Konami's part. Not least because we're getting a Silent Hill game set in Scotland as well.

"It was like the most positive response I've ever had to anything I posted," he says. On Reddit and TikTok, fans expressed gratitude and excitement for the inclusion. "Everybody was like, 'This is the perfect representation for autism. I feel seen,' etc., etc.," McMillen says. "That felt like somebody opened the door and said, 'Go on. Go ahead, do your thing.'"

So long as I manage to avoid lightbulbs or stay out of wine glasses, the buzzing will inevitably give way to silence. My wings will abruptly stop flapping and I'll careen towards the ground like an asteroid. I'll become a speck on a rug, a bit of debris absent-mindedly vacuumed up by someone who has no idea what adventures I've been on in the past minute.

I love my Steam Deck. I really truly do. It's a fantastic machine. And yet when I brought it with me on a five-week trip over the holidays, I used it for barely an hour the entire time. That doesn't really justify the space and weight it takes up in my bag. The same holds true for my Nintendo Switch 2 and PlayStation Portal.

I made this game during the summer in couple months and thought to use AI because in university there is so much brainwashing on students and all the tools are given for free,

Games Done Quick, the biannual charity speedrunning event currently going on right now, not only helps organizations like the Prevent Cancer Foundation and Doctors Without Borders - it helps indie games get noticed, too. Indie game developers face an incredible uphill battle not only getting their projects funded, completed, and launched, but discovered as well. Events like GDQ can be a boon to developers, exposing tens of thousands of viewers to little-known games like Bat to the Heavens, Small Saga, and more.

As artificial intelligence has seeped more into daily life, it's been met with a mix of acceptance and repulsion. The technology has been used to modify photos and improve productivity, but it has also threatened jobs and created havoc with the truth. When it comes to video games, players abhor AI. It's associated with slop and the deluge of nice-looking but cheaply made games. That has created a hunger for authenticity.

It's certainly true that Strange Jigsaws came out as long ago as August, and it's also very much the case that the game has a blistering "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating on Steam with a remarkable 99 percent of player reviews giving the game a thumbs-up. But somehow, this stunning follow-up to 2024's lovely 20 Small Mazes has not received a single published review, and has gone forgotten in end-of-year lists.

Between the launch of a new console and multiple first-party releases, 2025 was a pretty big year for Nintendo. The Switch 2 got off to a roaring start, but the original Switch family of consoles wasn't forgotten about this year, as Nintendo ensured several of its biggest releases were also playable on it. Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Pokemon Legends: Z-A were playable on the older hardware,

Clair Obscur, the first game from small studio Sandfall Interactive, tells the story of a group of characters battling seemingly impossible odds in a post-apocalyptic universe with a distinctively French visual style. It has been nominated in a record number of categories and will square up against heavyweights like Death Stranding 2 from industry legend Hideo Kojima of Metal Gear Solid fame, or Nintendo's Donkey Kong Bananza starring the eponymous gorilla.

After indie narrative horror game Horses was banned from Steam two years ago, it put the studio, Santa Ragione, at risk of closure. Studio cofounder and Horses producer Pietro Righi Riva had to make a difficult phone call to the game's director, Italian filmmaker Andrea Lucco Borlera. "I was terrified for him," Riva said in an interview with The Verge. "This was his first game and he put so much work, so much passion, so many years, and it was supposed to be his big breakthrough."

Santa Ragione said Epic notified the studio of its decision just 24 hours before the game was released on Tuesday, despite approving Horses for sale on the Epic Games Store weeks earlier. "Once again, no specific indication of problematic content in the game was given, only broad and demonstrably incorrect claims that it violated their content guidelines," the studio wrote in an FAQ. "Our appeal was denied twelve hours later without further explanation."

in the end, no longer means anything at all, and as such the fights over what is allowed to call itself one are mostly futile. It's best just left alone. But then along come the annual awards reserved specifically for whatever an indie game actually is, and suddenly the whole contentious topic is thrown into a harsh light, along with which comes a realization: