LEON!!!
![Do you, small / solo dev, know if your game is in IGF this year? No, do you REALLY? Have you asked your publisher? I unfortunately must relay to you that I can name three examples this year of high-profile IGF 2025 games that were submitted either:
By the indie’s publisher, without informing the developer at all
By the indie’s publisher’s externally contracted PR firm!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Do you want to know why this is a FUCKING BAD IDEA? Here’s an example of a thing that happened this year:
Judge: Hi! I’m having some technical issues with the build. Could you help me out?
PR Company who submitted: We’ll get in touch with the developer and get back to you.
—
*THREE WEEKS OUT OF THE 1 MONTH JUDGING PERIOD PASS*
—
Judge: Hello????? Judging is almost over. Is everything okay?
PR Company who submitted: We’ll have an updated build for you when the game comes out [note: That’s gonna be after judging is over]
Result: Your game has wasted its opportunity completely.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:2jjromh55tf7pp7s4hsvurf4/bafkreifowkvvhjwzzryqblcppotoxpjualnpq537xshqmrrtfk5st7gxoq)
Now that IGF and GDC is over I finally got around to writing up my postscript on IGF submissions and some of the issues we ran into in 2025. If you plan to submit your game in 2026 I recommend reading this, tbh. auratriolo.com/blog/2026/03...
Here's a little spoiler:
WE MADE IT ONTO NEW AND TRENDING!!
I went to take a screenshot to make a joke that we didn't make it and that I didn't realize it wasn't for games that were "trending down" but THERE WE ARE!!
Please do give our Greek myth anti-capitalist merge game a shot!
store.steampowered.com/app/1778050/...
2 DAYS
Our first Review of Mythmatch is up in... Kotaku!!
And apparently we're the indie of the week! 😍😍😍
kotaku.com/mythmatch-me...
🏹🏹🏹 Mythmatch is OUT NOW on Steam! 🏹🏹🏹
AND there's a 20% launch discount!
🐐 Merge the items
💪 Unite the people
🏠 Make a home
And it's Steam Deck Verified!!
store.steampowered.com/app/1778050/...
🥹
🎮 Mythmatch is Steam Deck Verified! 🎮
(And launching in 3 days)
Really excited by getting this rating before release as we do a ton of our testing on Steam Deck (because the game is made on a Mac).
So calling all Steam Deck players! Wishlist now!
store.steampowered.com/app/1778050/...
VIDEO GAMES ARE THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD!!! Watch this video and tell me if you agree!
And then come see all these games & meet the devs March 8 in SF!
youtu.be/hJf0-dsb-nI?...
Tough choices were made my9games.com
Thanks Moo! Looks like you got solid numbers too, and I saw some great coverage for Mythmatch! Hope it means good momentum going into launch!!
Do you want to believe?
Guess who's been rewatching the X Files~
Here's our numbers, with the context of ~62k wishlists going in. Pretty happy overall, though nowhere near as effective as Crow Country's NF in 2024...
General takeaway is that the store page does pretty well at getting wishlists by itself (~20% conversion during NF), the demo less so but still OK!
An interview about the development of The Mermaid Mask: www.respawnstation.com/2026/03/the-...
Don't let anybody tell you it's cheating to just buy some Crow Country souvenirs online instead of visiting the park yourself.
Browse the full collection here: www.fangamer.com/collections/...
And taking advantage of Flash's nested timelines is a big part of the puzzle, being able to independently play back or set frames on those allows for a super flexible character model, closer to the way 3D animation can independently animate different parts of the body
Absolutely, it would work for any style, we just happen to have the vector look. The general idea is that a whole frame of a human gesturing packs pretty badly and almost guarantees no image reuse, but automatically breaking it up into smaller chunks allows for much tighter packing and reuse
Thanks! Aim was balancing texture memory (one 4096x4096 texture per character), render speed and flexibility, and also making sure the animator/artist don't have to worry about any of that, just frame-by-frame animate right into Flash!
Definitely going to redo it here soon with new features...
It's an older thread, and it's on The Bad Place, but here's how we handle 2D animation in Tangle Tower, and in our upcoming game The Mermaid Mask - I'm going to enjoy doing a thread on all the new animation tech I've added since, it's a lot!
x.com/SFBTom/statu...
Check out some of the concept art slides from the Art Gallery feature we added to The Mermaid Mask steam demo!
Crow Country is $9.99 on Steam buff.ly/Af9MN6M
Xbox buff.ly/agUKfIP
Deck verified
also on PS+ Extra
Checking out some Steam Next Fest demos this weekend?
🧜♀️Try The Mermaid Mask!🗡️
Like Ace Attorney, Monkey Island, Professor Layton, Tintin & Indiana Jones had a detective adventure game baby
We have over 65k wishlists so far, help us reach 100k by launch!
store.steampowered.com/app/1696770/...
Just under 2 days left to enter!
Me: ugh, everything is getting less and less colourful these days, bring back the bright palettes of the 90s
Also me: I NEED THE BLEAKACHU
For reference / #gamedev info, our most recent game Crow Country in 2024 had:
30k wishlists before Next Fest
40k wishlists after Next Fest
60k wishlists a week before launch
80k wishlists the hour before launch
So I'm cautiously optimistic The Mermaid Mask will do OK when it launches this Summer
Checking out some Steam Next Fest demos this weekend?
🧜♀️Try The Mermaid Mask!🗡️
Like Ace Attorney, Monkey Island, Professor Layton, Tintin & Indiana Jones had a detective adventure game baby
We have over 65k wishlists so far, help us reach 100k by launch!
store.steampowered.com/app/1696770/...
GOING LIVE FOR DAY TWO 👀
Giveaways in Twitch chat every £100 raised for #Gameblast26 @specialeffect.org.uk! Keys kindly provided by @sfbdim.bsky.social @sfbtom.bsky.social @panicdepartment.bsky.social 🥰
twitch.tv/lomadiah
youtube.com/live/gDhz1_P...
I'm gonna do a list of my favourite Next Fest demos, but for now:
You owe it to yourself to play the demo of The Eternal Life of Goldman. The fact that you get to see animation this delicious FOR FREE is insane. The trailer doesn't do it justice but here it is anyway
youtu.be/PrfqckMmWW4?...
We've been getting the most wonderful responses to the Mythmatch Demo for Next Fest.
store.steampowered.com/app/2490290/...
It's a perfect weekend play so help us keep the momentum going!
And if you've played it and loved it, please leave a review to let others know it's worth taking a chance on!
