Vaughn Highfield

The best games of 2025 Introducing Google Play’s Best Games of 2025. These winners, carefully selected by our editorial council, are this year’s must-play games. They’re the experiences pushing the boundaries, showcasing th...

Also, very pleased with this year's Best of Play awards on Google Play!

As always, it's been great to select the very deserving winners and to celebrate with them via videos and our award ceremonies around the world.

You can see the winners here play.google.com/store/apps/e...

#GooglePlay

Meet Kensuke Imura, CEO of Gagex The indie studio showcasing authentic Japanese cuisine and heart-warming stories

Something to warm you up as winter approaches! Google Play spoke with GAGEX.CO founder and CEO Kensuke Imura about the Hungry Hearts series and being a developer tapping into cosy, food-based fun.

play.google.com/store/apps/e...

#indie #indiegames #android #GooglePlay

Meet Lili Ibrahim, lead artist at Ustwo Games Unraveling Ustwo Games' design-forward process

This month on Google Play we speak to Lili Ibrahim, lead artist at @ustwogames.co.uk about building design-forward games and the latest entry into the Monument Valley series. play.google.com/store/apps/e...

#indie #mobilegames #googleplay #interviews #indiegames #indiedeveloper #design

Meet Kirsten and Rebecca, business leads at Landfall Games The Swedish studio pioneering wacky physics and multiplayer mayhem

Another month, another spotlight on Google Play! This month we spoke to @landfall.se about their journey to bring TABS to #android with TABS Pocket Edition!
play.google.com/store/apps/e... #indie #indeidevs #mobilegames #googleplay

Meet Arnold Rauers, founder of Tinytouchtales The creative force stacking one successful card game after another

This month's indie dev spotlight is with @arnoldrauers.com of Tinytouchtsles, the mind behind Guncho, Card Crawl and many others.

play.google.com/store/apps/e...

#googleplay #indie #androiddev #indiegames #interview

Enjoy! Their London show on this tour was phenomenal!

Meet Gionathan Pesaresi, founder of Neutronized How a love of programming and pixel art spawned a successful feline franchise

This month #GooglePlay spoke to @neutronized.bsky.social's Gionathan Pesaresi about his love of game development, pixel art and platformers.

#indie #interview #mobilegames #italianindie #androidgames

play.google.com/store/apps/e...

Corporate 101. They think employees care about shareholder interests and shit sandwich bad news with two slices of the limpest reasoning available to them.

Wtf is going on in west London

Meet Jess Yu, solo developer of a bunny haven How a love of art, bunnies, and an abandoned Japanese island inspired a cozy collectathon

This month's indie dev interview on Google Play is with the wonderful @pank0.bsky.social and her charming bunny collecting game Usagi Shima! play.google.com/store/apps/e...

#indie #indiedevs #googleplay #usagishima #studiorabbiko

There was definitely buzz around PS5 for sure. There was a lot of buzz around the first Switch but that was also pre-covid and Nintendo had done a lot of event touring for the lead up. Feels like for Switch 2 they've just not really bothered?

Meet Robin and Maarten, co-founders of Rusty Lake How a Dutch studio became an architect of puzzles and surrealism

Another month and another one of our developer interviews has gone live on Google Play. This time we speak to @rustylake.com co-founders Robin Ras and Maarten Looise about their adventures into the surreal. play.google.com/store/apps/e...

#indie #indiedevs #googleplay #rustylake

Can't answer specifically around this but avoid Akihabara and go to Ikebukuro instead. Still busy but fewer tourists and a nicer vibe in general!

Ah I'll be there too! Can't wait

Other than for political posturing with a small (and probably more right-leaning) industry, I really don't understand why there's so much focus on fishing vs all the other UK industries that provide significant impact to the GDP which Brexit hit far harder than fishing was/would be...

With the news of Raymond's departure from Sony, I do start to wonder at what point do you just decide to go do your own thing? Since launching Assassin's Creed, I don't believe she's seen anything else she's worked on get to release. Gotta be disheartening and tiring.

Agreed, I think what's exacerbated it are so many sensationalist headlines vs straightforward ones. I understand why some outlets do that (and some are far worse than others at how they do it), but sometimes it does feel like social media and AI overviews make it a race to the bottom.

I'm not clued up on all this inter-industry drama these days but I don't really understand why this is drama? Not your post, the one you quoted and the replies onto it. Clearly people do care about current Waypoint otherwise his article wouldn't have riled anyone?

Also, I saw a piece the other day praising how it doesn't follow a bunch of highschool kids like "every JRPG" forgetting that most JRPGs don't do that and ignoring the fact that these 32 year olds all act with the emotional maturity of high school kids anyway...

Clair Obscur gets it - a strong and simple hook goes a long way How often does a game grab you from the very beginning?

I did not gel with Clair Obscur and when I read things like this I feel like I must have been playing something entirely different? I found that opening incredibly trite. Perhaps that's why I never saw value in any of the characters or their stories.

search.app/iv7we

End of an era. Although I lost direct access to my press account a while ago, it was still a joyous time when I had it.

I've given up on COE33, I just don't gel with it and, unlike BG3 (which I also didn't gel with) I can't really see why people are gushing over it so much? Part of me thinks it's because it's a western-made JRPG and that's it really...

Americans (mostly on Reddit/TikTok) say Europeans are poor, not realising that they just get continually shafted by prices on the US and have inflated wages to mentally ease the pain.

Was that because people had moved on from Memory Cards?

Main issues are that I feel like the whole setting is trying a bit too hard to be unique, so it feels a bit dull? I find the combat fiddly compared to the likes of Metaphor/Persona that it's clearly emulating. And I'm currently not sold on the characters or what they're fighting for 🙃

I'll stick with Expedition 33 but, at the moment, I'm really not gelling with it. I know this is an issue of a lot of RPGs that only get going like 10-20 hours in (I presume this fits that description given it's basically a JRPG) but ATM it's giving me a lot of vibes I'm not into that much...

??? Cream soda was/is definitely a thing here. Barr used to make cans of it and M&S used to stock it too. I remember buying it from the ice cream van sometimes as well. Basically just tastes like a ice cream float. Vanilla is in there and a bunch of sugar to make it feel creamy.

At the Museum of Denmark in Copenhagen and this is a wild game choice to use to show off evolution of gaming software from the 90s to 00s...

The game's true enemy

Yeah, that was my mistake, I slept. I forgot that the game scales with you. Push come to shove I'll reload an old save but it does mean losing out on what progress I did manage to make.