Six standout games from SGF's Saturday indie powerhouse block
- Nate and Julie
- 10 hours ago
- 8 min read
Summer Game Fest’s Saturday was a big ol’ blowout of incredible indies from across the globe. Wholesome Direct kicked off the morning with 60 games and a ton of surprise same-day releases, followed by the powerhouse block of Women-Led Games, Latin American Games Showcase, Southeast Asian Games Showcase, and Frosty Games Fest, which showed us the incredible potential of diverse voices in gaming. The day seemed impossible to spoil.
Well, YouTube tech and strange choices in the name of environmentalism had something to say about the otherwise stellar day we had watching and reacting to all of these shows. Future Games Show was unfortunately foiled by YouTube tech errors, leading to the stream bouncing to and fro, sometimes skipping entire trailers, and generally interrupting the flow of the presentation. And the Green Games Show, which promised to highlight games that pushed real world change and invited gamers to be part of a “global green initiative,” started off its show with multiple games using generative AI assets.
One notable offender had the Green Games Show hosts praising it for its "incredible visuals" and whose website features crypto in the form of an in-game currency. GenAI and crypto are two technologies that spit in the face of environmentalism and any “global green initiative” worth their merit would balk at partnering with. It certainly soured our mood, and we removed it from our co-streaming lineup in the end.
But at the end of the day, it’s the games that keep us grounded and bring us back to why we love this art form (when it's made by actual artists).
And with nearly 300 games shown across the day’s shows, most of which we immediately added to our wishlists if they weren't there already, we present to you six standout games that we'll be keeping an eye on during their paths to launch.
Developed by: Dzuy Anh Do
Published by: Dzuy Anh Do
Genre: Game-within-a-game coming of age story
Release Date: TBA
Presented during the Southeast Asian Games Showcase, Loading… was one we all quickly latched onto, beginning with the premise: “You are 10-year-old Kiet. It is 2005, and your brother is dead. Nothing to do but game.”
The 2D-3D shifting game explores a complex moment in the lives of Kiet and his family, centering around his relationship with video games while he navigates childhood and finding community. Kiet is learning about his brother’s life and death through gaming, tuning out confusing family arguments, and navigating his grandpa’s declining health.
Loading… is told through three different eras of gaming: a handheld, pixel-style RPG; a walking sim, and a first-person-shooter played with his older brother’s online gaming friends, some of whom are seemingly not the best role models.
Its trailer nodded to some incredibly turbulent and emotional waters ahead, but also conjured a nostalgic warmth.
We often think about games like a time capsule from a specific moment in our lives. There’s the Game Boy game that you tried to keep playing in the car, even if it was just in four-second intervals as you passed under the glow of each streetlamp. There’s the farming sim that got you through the most anxiety-plagued years of college.
We’re excited to see how gaming plays into Kiet’s young life, in times of growth and times of grief, when Loading… is fully loaded. There is no release window yet, so stay on top of its development with a wishlist.
Developed by: LEAP Game Studios
Published by: LEAP Game Studios, Pchujoy Games
Genre: Early 2000s PC and LAN party simulator
Release Date: 2025
While I didn’t partake in LAN party culture so much growing up, I did mess around a lot with computers. For most of my childhood, my dad was an absolute tech fiend. So that meant I was a tech fiend. And fiddling with our PCs was a fun little activity we shared. We tinkered, we upgraded, we built. It became a part of my DNA.
Seeing that DNA embedded directly into LAN Party Adventures was exactly what called me to the game, promising an experience that saw players getting nitty-gritty in setting up PCs for clients and friends throwing LAN parties and using the backdrop of the early 2000s to help unravel a mystery about a missing friend.
There’s something about this new era of hands-on simulators that calls to me inherently, but you tack on a compelling narrative on top of that, and I’m at your beck and call.
LEAP Game Studios has some great pedigree behind them, having worked on Dicefolk and Tunche before this, so we’re so excited to see what they have in store for this nostalgic simulation-based adventure.
Developed by: Winter Crew Studios
Published by: CMD Studios
Genre: Giant hand-drawn Metroidvania
Release Date: Coming soon
I was hooting and hollering when this Filipino-developed Metroidvania was revealed during the inaugural Southeast Asian Games Showcase this year. I try my best to keep up with the Filipino game development scene, but this project completely caught me off guard.
Winter Crew Studios is shooting for the stars with this hand-drawn Metroidvania that promises to blend elements of Breath of the Wild, Elden Ring, and Valkyrie Profile. They’re delivering a “boundless world” with 26(!) unique biomes, each chock-full of enemies and bosses to fight. 150 to be exact. That environment is set to react to and shift with the choices you make across its narrative, where you work to gather up powerful “Fated Bonds” that team up with protagonist Hira to deliver powerful combos and special moves. And all of those characters are fully voiced, by the way.
It’s an incredibly ambitious project that looks pretty far along and polished enough that we feel good backing this horse. Don’t be surprised when this ends up on some “Best of” lists when it drops in Q1 2026. We tried to tell ya.
Developed by: Speculative Agency
Published by: Speculative Agency
Genre: Narrative courtroom deckbuilder
Release Date: TBA
Hearts, minds, and guts: You’ll need all three to successfully win the battle for the future in All Will Rise.
Shown during the Wholesome Direct, it’s a “narrative courtroom deckbuilder about ordinary people who make the powerful pay for destroying our future.” The player is a lawyer in the vibrant city Muziris — and she and her team are taking legal action against a corrupt billionaire for a river’s murder. While the court focus and absurdity of Ace Attorney is cited as a source of inspiration, from what we see in the trailer, the work is actually happening out on the streets, not in the court itself.
You’re sending members of your team with the most optimal strengths and weaknesses out canvassing for information from everyday folks and gathering claims as evidence. Through the leads you follow and the choices you make, you unlock cards and build up the irrefutability of your argument so you can go on to hold the offending eco-villain to account.
Evidently, there’s lots to consider in how you gather your intel. You’re meant to play to people’s emotions and use rhetoric cards that expand your strategies; there are options to exploit or blackmail people, or pass information to more violent factions in the city.
It’s a strikingly bold concept for a game, and with its gorgeously saturated visual style, stacked team made up of developers as well as climate advocates, and salient themes about the people-power needed to bring about consequences for climate destruction, it is certainly one we’ll be watching.
Developed by: Yangyang Mobile
Published by: Yangyang Mobile
Genre: Dating and cooking sim
Release Date: TBA
Move over “sandwich artist.” “Mood confectioner” has now taken the top spot for the best silly food service title.
As a huge fan of both cooking games and dating sims, the pairing of the two could not be more welcome in my game library. In High Times, you manage a donut shop where your baked goods are infused with mood enhancers that can make a person feel joy, focus, sincerity or a variety of other emotions (I’ll take a baker’s dozen, please). You serve customers what they need, whether through a direct request or by hearing out their stories and figuring out what they need, a la Coffee Talk.
For the dating sim element, you have the ability to spark a romance, but in an unusual context: Your character has been a bit of a serial ghoster throughout life, and now deals with the awkwardness, as every ex they’ve ever had seems to have arrived in town and moseyed into the donut shop.
I'm curious to see the game dive into the history between the player and all of these people from their past, and how the mood-shifting effects of the donuts might interact with the conversations you have.
The customers, exes and friends I encountered in the game’s demo each had their own zany (and occasionally unhinged) flavor. All the game’s characters are voiced besides the player character, with a cast including the likes of LilyPichu, Nola Klop, and Johnny Yong Bosch.
This game was already one to watch for us, and seeing via the Southeast Asian Games Showcase that this title comes from a small team in the Phillipines has jumped it even HIGHer up our list.
Developed by: Ghoulish
Published by: Ghoulish
Genre: Fixed-camera investigative non-linear horror
Release Date: TBA
Parasensor was the grand finale — not only of the Frosty Games Fest, but of this nine-hour day of co-streaming showcases. This “One More Thing” from the Frosty Games Fest may be further out than we’d hope, as the developers emphasize everything shown so far is from the game’s pre-alpha state, but we’re already so confident that this game is going to be something special from the game’s debut trailer and everything the team at Ghoulish is saying about it already.
Parasensor drops players into a fictional 2006, where protagonist Marisol Mendez takes on a new gig as a telecom technician in a city that is full of odd, diseased inhabitants and has walls blocking it off from the rest of society. Anything to get away from your past and all its problems, right?
Juggling a mysterious disappearance, the bug-like transformations of the people around her, and the complex interpersonal conversations she’ll have to undertake to make it out of all of this alive, Marisol will develop “neuroses” that affect every little thing in this game. Her abilities, her personality, how others perceive her. Being perceived is already a nightmare; we don’t need to make things any harder for ourselves.
It may be a while until we’re able to get our hands on this incredibly special-looking game, but we’re already sold on its vision. Non-linear horror with a focus on investigation and little to no mention of anything combat related? Sign us the fuck up.
If you’d like to hear about a few more special games from today’s offerings, Nate, Fish, and Fern closed out their stream with an extended highlights segment that gave us looks at games like:
Piss Off: A hilariously crude party game where you and your friends play little guys pissing on each other. Yeah. It’s wild.
Am I Nima: A chilling word-combining narrative adventure that has you questioning everything.
Drywall Eating Simulator: A game that is exactly what it says on the tin.
Death and Faeology: An investigative visual novel that sees players seeking answers to the murders of the fae-touched, with the option to romance any of four companions.
Gourdlets Together: A chill hangout game where you say “gourd morning” to your friends.
The Shadow Syndicate: An investigative third-person shooter where you get to shoot a Nazi that happens to be a dog.
Danchi Days: A reminder to stop and literally smell the roses, or maybe listen to your plumbing? Inspired by Hamtaro.
Seasonala Cemetery: A real-time cemetery appreciator that invites you to find a bit of peace and contentedness there. (Free and out now.)
The Fractured Shimmer: A 2.5D horror experience with fucked up little monsters and puzzles.