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ECGx 2026

2026-07-26T00:00:00Z

Another year, another Edinburgh College Games eXpo! I wrote a post about last year's event, so it was only natural to continue the tradition (first ever series on this blog? huge if true!)

It was very busy and over way too soon. Our usual suspects from the local scene were present. But one thing was different and not the same. This time, I picked up a wee paper map that named all the games and their devs. I am so prepared to write this post!!

One More Game by MonsterHunteroo

One More Game on a desktop

You play a game-within-a-game on a TV on the left side of the screen, while keeping an eye out for the jumpscare-ape on the right. When you see it creeping, you can close your eyes to make it disappear... but it also means you can't see the TV screen of the game you're playing. A simple but effective multitasking concept. I thought the ape pixelart was really neat!

The student dev posted the game on itch and also joined the edindies discord (#notsponsored) and got some feedback there. The scene is better when there's more sharing and showcasing of the stuff we've all made!

Less Miserables by College Fun Games

Less Miserables on a desktop

Sacrebleu! Isn't it... the successful-on-Kickstarter, demo-having, point-and-clicking jeu vidéo? I didn't play too much of this one as I didn't want to hog the machine, but from what I played, the environment art is lovely, the characters are funny, and the writing... how do I put it, it just has a bit of je ne sais quoi to it.

Hand In Glove by Kyle Newman

Hand In Glove on a desktop

I couldn't figure out how to play this one, so I just tinkered for a bit but even that felt cool. The 3D modeling and texture work is excellent, and I remember the dev posting a timelapse of them working on the main menu's 3D art (still in the edindies discord, still not sponsored) that I was really impressed by.

They even included a Game Design Document on the table, that was stylised to fit the Cold War vibe of the game! Always appreciate a dev doing the most. (Also, if you're asking yourself, "if the GDD was right there, couldn't you have read it to figure out how to play?" and yes, you've got a point, but on a busy expo floor my cognitive abilities are reduced to "press button".)

Hand In Glove's Game Design Document

Forest of Deceit by Ghost Camp

Forest of Deceit on a large display

Forest of Deceit is a recently released social deduction game. Yo get paired up every night and have to discard resource cards, with the good guys trying to keep the valuable cards in play to survive, and the bad guys doing whatever it is those guys do. I thought the character art was so cool! Look at me slaying with my lute. Didn't get to fully play it myself due to some technical troubles, but I noticed people got to enjoy it later on!

Mirror Knight by Dylan Odonnell

Mirror Knight on a desktop

The theme for this year's student games was "reflection". This game implemented a shield system so you're only ever reflecting enemy bullets rather than shooting your own, while jump-wallrun-dashing in style. The movement felt really satisfying! I thought the dev did a good job of using assets where needed, while ensuring the game looked visually cohesive.

Sigil of Kings by Byte Arcane

Sigil of Kings on a laptop

The dev did a great job utilising simple pixelart animations and lots of shader work to make the game visually dynamic. "Bot mode", which auto-plays through the game, was fun to just look at, which is a good sign! More games should have an attract mode for expos.

There's lots of biomes and powers you can obtain, and the photo I took is the worst example; the game looks much better in motion, so do check out its Steam page so you can go "woah it does look much better in motion".

Turbo 16 by Socks Off Studio

Turbo 16 on a laptop

This game looks so good! It's got a really dreamy memory feel to it. It's a narrative racing game about dementia. The racer's room was so cool; you select different items like the trophy case or the TV to get to different menus, and a model display case on a shelf serves as a way to select and customise your car. It also has a demo out...

I had a chat with the dev about having a stable part-time dayjob that leaves enough days for consistent indie gamedev. This was a theme at this event for me, as a couple people mentioned having a similar setup. With the current state of the games industry, this seems like a more realistic goal to work towards than full-time gamedev, at least to start with.

Lab Rat Jonny by Nocturne Games

Lab Rat Jonny on a desktop

This was really charming, and I loved the ZX Spectrum-inspired art. The controls felt great, so even though I was mostly talking to the dev's friend who was exhibiting on their behalf and not actually making any progress through the level, I was still enjoying it.

A running thread (for this post but also maybe for all expos?) is getting the basics right. If I'm going full streamer mode, where I'm talking to the dev while continuing to idly mess about in the game rather than putting it down, you know you've got something decent going!

There's a website for the game with some screenshots but it doesn't seem like it's been updated in a while, hopefully it'll have a Steam or itch page soon.

Realms of Ashjana by Hour of Oblivion

Realms of Ashjana on a desktop

Immersive sim but it's made in Godot? We've got it at ECGx! I had a lot of fun messing around and kicking guards (which currently catapults them into the sky), killing enemies then dropping them from a variety of large heights, and also completing the actual quest of course. The game has an impressive number of systems in it already, including a dialogue flow and various weapons to pick from. I didn't encounter any major bugs (which is saying a lot as immersive sims seem really complex to build), and the jankiness of the physics systems is not a bug, but a feature.

I've been seeing regular updates in the discord of things not working in funny or annoying ways, so it was pleasantly surprising to actually play the game and see how much of it is functional and fun to play!

And that's all I had time for when the event concluded!

I noticed that most indie devs had some kind of digital presence for the game that I was able to link to, while most of the student projects I only had the name of. If you're exhibiting even at a small event, it's a good call to set up a placeholder itch page early, so that people that enjoyed your thing are able to have another look at it or get in touch with you after the event... or link to your game in a blog post.

I wonder what next year will bring. Manifesting Opona and Exon Deluxe Collector's Edition...

Steam Wishlist Next Fest

2026-05-27T00:00:00Z

Demos are back, baby! This February saw yet another Steam Next Fest demo bonanza, but for me, it was a chance to take part in my own totally not made-up event: the Steam Wishlist Next Fest.

Instead of diving into recommendation lists from friends and foes and getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of demos available, I focus instead on primarily playing through demos of games that are already in my wishlist!

The result is that I either get more excited about a game I already knew about, or I trim down the wishlist, so it's a win-win. And even if I don't enjoy the game that much, I always get a kick out of trying out a genre I don't play that often and seeing what's happening in that space. I also get to develop a sense of what makes a demo good or "to my taste", and reflect on how a demo can indicate the game's scoping and production approach more broadly.

This time around, I found a handy website for quickly seeing which wishlisted games had demos available: it just takes your Steam ID and spits out a list. Note that you might run into false positives, as sometimes demos get delisted.

Here are the games I liked! Join me next time there's a Steam Next Fest! Or just take a random week where you're less busy, and make it into your own Steam Wishlist Next Fest extravaganza! No one makes the rules but you.

Titanium Court

Screenshot via Titanium Court's Steam page

How can I not mention Titanium Court! A game too many people lauded for me not to try! The now IGF grand prize winner, a demo too good not to enjoy...

I loooved that during the first 20 minutes, you can't quite tell what gameplay you're being led towards, it doesn't map onto anything standard you are used to expect. There's a cutscene, and it turns out it's not just a stylised bit of story, it's actually showing you a preview of the gameplay. Having really no way to predict what's coming next is so exciting.

Being into/in games for a while, I feel like there's fewer things that really surprise me nowadays, so it's such a delight when something does. It shakes me out of feeling doom-and-gloom about the broader industry, and instead I'm fully engaged with this thing someone made and I'm excited about it and games and how much there is still to explore and try!

It also reminded me I wanted to play through Inscryption properly...

Enter the Chronosphere

Screenshot via Enter the Chronosphere's Steam page

I don't usually play roguelikes, as I find they get frustrating and unrewarding real quick. I was super impressed by Hades II when I was playing a bit of it in January though, which led to me giving Enter the Chronosphere a chance. And it's great! The concept-- turn-based so you have time to strategise how you'll minimise the effect of the shower of bullets racing towards you-- is cool, it feels fun to play and looks great!

I also discovered by DuckDuckGoing that the game won an IGN reality TV show?? It took me forever to dig this up, but this preview video shows how at the time, the game showcased the gameplay mechanics without any 3D art, with simple but clean-looking graphics. It looks unrecognisable now, and has lovely UI throughout. It's good to see a game that focused on checking the concept first, instead of diving into polishing everything and falling over itself.

Lorn's Lure

Screenshot via Lorn's Lure's Steam page

I loved playing Peripeteia when it released in Early Access, so Lorn's Lure, another eurojank megastructure exploration game, was a no-brainer to try out and subsequently love. It foregoes Peripeteia's RPG elements for linear traversal-focused gameplay, and adds waypoints and convenient resetting after a fall. And I fell a lot, and always get lost in these things, so this really helps make an otherwise demanding game engaging to play!

In Stars And Time

Screenshot via In Stars And Time's Steam page

I've heard a lot of good things about In Stars And Time, so naturally that meant I've been procrastinating actually checking it out. I have now! The demo's good! The game's doing some really interesting things with JRPG-style turn-based combat, and I was initially worried the dialogue would irk me, in the trying-too-hard-to-be-funny-way-- but it's actually quite cute! Looking forward to playing this when I've got RPG brain capacity.

Pup Champs

Screenshot via Pup Champs's Steam page

The demo for Pup Champs is super polished, a compact 20 minutes that shows you exactly what you'll get in the full version. The screenshot showcases how elegantly legible it is-- you can make a good guess at most of the gameplay elements just based on it alone!

This falls in the bucket of "this was fun and good, but I don't see myself playing any more of it", and by no fault of its own. I find puzzle games quite taxing (something about wanting to feel smart and hyperfixating on solving a puzzle?), so I play them irregularly in short bursts, and have enough in my Steam library that I'm unlikely to get to this, so I'm glad I played the demo.

Bad Pixels

Screenshot via Bad Pixel's Steam page

I love the keygen/demoscene-style opening screen for Bad Pixels, as well as the framing of the demo as a "taster", which sets expectations nicely. I messed around for 15 minutes, thought it looked cool, and will continue waiting for the full release. Easy peazy!

Wizordum

Screenshot via Wizordum's Steam page

Wizordum describes itself as a retro FPS, but I would call it "what if Skyrim but funky and pixels". My understanding of Skyrim is that you can have things in both hands and do magic. I think I hit the nail on the head.

I messed around in this for a bit, it tracks level completion time so I'm guessing people speedrun it? The art is nice and colourful, and it feels fun to play, though it took me a while to feel comfortable with the controls. Seems like the kind of thing I'd pick up for a short session of just messing about.

Demos I've played before

Esoteric Ebb

Screenshot via Esoteric Ebb's Steam page

I played the demo for Esoteric Ebb a few Next Fests ago and have been so excited for this releasing ever since-- and it's out now!! I saw a Steam reviewer call it "Disco Elysium but hopecore" and yes. That's exactly what I need: a deep narrative in a wacky fantasy world, with impeccable art direction. I dropped Disco Elysium hard after a dozen hours, when I wandered into the apartments and interacting with some tiny decorative object in someone's flat led to an endless tirade about the history of the political systems at play. Sometimes... objects can just have one-liners... please let me go... As someone who clicks everything, I guess it felt overwritten to me? Anyway. Enough hot takes! Play Esoteric Ebb!

Mermaid's Mask

Screenshot via Mermaid's Mask Steam page

I'm SO excited for Mermaid's Mask coming out this summer. Tangle Tower was so fun, with memorable characters, top-notch voice acting, and rewarding puzzles. Mermaid's Mask is gonna be more of the same but also better! What will Detective Grimoire and Sally uncover this time...

The ones I didn't like

I was going to write up some thoughts on what the demos I didn't like had in common. However, this post is already long, and it's good to focus on celebrating the games that did have cool demos, so I'll leave it at that for now! Join me next time, and let me know if you try out any of the games above!

The Slow Game Club Report 1

2026-02-22T00:00:00Z

I got a membership for Slow Game Club this year, as a way to engage with games more intentionally; anything to lengthen that ol' attention span! It's a charity fundraiser that funds games careers workshops for kids from low-income backgrounds in the UK, and in return, you receive 12 indie games, without knowing in advance which games you'll get throughout the year. As part of your membership, a game key lands in your mailbox at the start of each month, there's a Discord server to discuss the games as you play through them during the course of the month, and you even get a Q&A with the developers where they answer the server's questions!

The game for January was Thank Goodness You're Here!. It's not the kind of game I'd pick up myself, so it was great to have an excuse to try something different. I enjoyed playing with a different kind of humour and going "oh god no" at the silliness. I'll spoil a bit of the game below so be warned!

While some gags might not have landed as well as others for me, it's such a compact game-- 3-ish hours, or longer if you're me and slowww-- that it doesn't feel like any gag overstays its welcome for too long. Playing this alongside a couple other games around the same time made me realise how much good pacing affects my enjoyment of a game, to the point that I can handle middling writing or writing that doesn't resonate with me much better than okay writing that Just. Drags. On. Maybe that just makes it not good writing in the first place tbf.

I realise this sounds like "Vaida realised pacing is a key part of narrative design", but I genuinely believed that I was more unforgiving of mid writing than I actually am. Turns out good pacing makes me go "okay the story is functional, it's there to move me to this next bit, fair enough. It's not your strength, and you're not trying to convince me that it is".

A few examples of this, I dropped Wargroove 2 because the introductory narrative sections were so boring to get through, and I'm not one for skipping story outright; in comparison, a game like EARTHLOCK has a pretty classic story and characters, but it's funny and lets me get on with playing the game.

As my friend Lisa told me when I shared these thoughts:

"If you're going to be uninteresting, at least don't be boring"

Lisa (who always says it best)

But back to Thank Goodness You're Here!. It did have some excellent jokes, and a richness of details in each scene, so there was always something that worked for me in a scene, especially the ramping up of situations that you keep revisiting. I'm still laughing at "Closed due to smacky bum bums :(".

It's also so confident, and doesn't mind people discounting it as "oh haha funny game" at first and then surprising you with the direction it takes with the ending sequence; it's happy to lose some people by not revealing its cards too early.

It's cool how rooted in a specific place this game is, that makes for a much more interesting experience than a generic (probably American) Town in Game, and the fact it very much is spoken in a dialect of that place. The authenticity being more important than understandability or a watering down, and something that players appreciate and can engage with. There's an interesting article about how the game's regionalisms and humour got localised that I've yet to fully read.

Also, how "slap" as the main verb frames every single interaction with the world.

Also also, one of my questions got answered by the devs! Fun! I asked why the Scottish plumber, who spoke with a heavy Scottish accent, spoke Scottish English rather than speaking Scots, as my Scots-speaking partner watched me play a bit of the game and had remarked that it it'd feel more authentic that way, especially with the vibe the game was already going for.

Reflecting on Slow Game Club overall, I find Discord communities overwhelming when they're too active, so I'm glad this server isn't super busy. I think it's because it's gated by a donation, so skews towards an older demographic that doesn't clog up the server with memeposting; a lot of people just lurk and play the games. There's lots of thoughtful, evolving discussion over the month, and that's exactly what I was hoping for. I've been really worn out by social media, and trying to increase prolonged engagement with media I consume rather than jumping around to the next thing, so it's nice to have an outlet for that.

I didn't finish the game, and initially I felt like I should do so ahead of the dev interview to "make the most out of it" but then I snapped out of it. I got the enjoyment I wanted from it! I can both enjoy a game and also decide I don't really want to see any more of it at this point in time! I find it really hard to leave things "unfinished", so learning how to drop a game or how to return to it without frustrating myself are things I want to practise more. There's a channel for discussing the game with spoilers and one without, and I kept myself from reading the spoilers channel as I wanted to finish the game first, but that meant missing out on conversation. I think in future months I'll let myself "give up" on a game earlier, so I can read the spoilered chat earlier. So I'm really treating this as meta-learning of how I approach games and being more chill with it.

February's game is Sorry We're Closed, which I loved playing through in December (those character portraits, oof) and I'm not one for replaying games much, especially so soon, so instead I took the chance to try out one of the bonus games (we got some unused keys from the previous year's edition), Paradise Killer. I'm really surprised by how much I'm enjoying it! Mixing visual novel sections with 3D world traversal works like a charm for switching between two different modes of thinking and resting your brain, and give you a chance to form theories. I kept thinking I'd get stuck or disengaged, but things kept moving and a really satisfying mystery was built up. I've just got the final bit to go through. Paradise will be saved... or will it...

This month, I watched a video about the Dialectics of Go that someone from the server recommended; it was an excellent watch, with the joining up of theories across various fields. Meanwhile, someone else said that after a conversation we had and watching some dev interviews, they'd changed their opinion on an aspect of Sorry We're Closed. People engaging with each other over time, coming out changed! It's what Jenny Odell said would happen...

"Sensitivity, in contrast, involves a difficult, awkward, ambiguous encounter between two differently shaped bodies that are themselves ambiguous — and this meeting, this sensing, requires and takes place in time. Not only that, due to the effort of sensing, the two entities might come away from the encounter a bit differently than they went in."

Jenny Odell, how to do nothing (I've read the book when in university and have been referencing it everywhere since)

I was thinking of looking up alternate endings and checking out the artbook for the game; the dev interview is next week so maybe I'll do it before then or maybe I won't. I think I know what next month's game will be as a few games are revealed due to being in the advertising material for the club. If so, I've already played it as well (woa watch out, hashtag indie games nerd over here!!), so I might dig into some more articles that the game studies person from the server linked to, or something else.

You can join Slow Game Club and still get keys for these first two games, if you're interested!

ECGx 2025

2025-06-28T00:00:00Z

Earlier this month I went to ECGx, a yearly showcase for the Edinburgh College Games course, with space for local devs to show their work as well.

It was great to see regulars of the Edinburgh indie scene again; though the event was on for just an hour and a half, so it was a struggle to catch up and play some games and talk to new people! I got compliments on my Neon Genesis Evangelion t-shirt (courtesy of UNIQLO, grab it while stocks last), and shamed when I admitted I hadn't actually seen it yet. It's on my list! I'll get to it! I want to finish Cowboy Bebop first...

Here are pictures of some of the games I played:

Give up the Ghost by Either/Or Collective

Give up the Ghost on a desktop

Give up the Ghost is a black-and-white RPG that is inspired by Disco Elysium, with really lovely art (look at that character design in the second image!).

I really liked how it approaches the character setup. You start by picking a "way of seeing", I chose Hindsight: "history reveals itself to you (...) but regret will haunt you." The narrative tone is clear from the very first explanatory text!

I played just a bit before deciding I liked it and wanted to check out the demo at home instead to properly enjoy it.

Upfall and CRT7 by Amicable Animal

Upfall on a desktop

Both Upfall and CRT7 have focused gameplay and polished glowy graphics-- it's a signature style! Upfall is free to play, while CRT7 is still in development, with a demo available. Excited to see where it takes things...

The Three Mushketeers by Georgia Cairns

The Three Mushketeers on a desktop

This is a charming game about three mushrooms with different powers, and Georgia made all of the art! This reminded me of the "games for girls" of the 90s-- specifically the DCA exhibition on Theresa Duncan I went to in 2016. I really liked Chop Suey-- here's a longplay. I'd recommend even skimming through it, it's a great reset if you get stuck in thinking that games need to be a certain way. I've been feeling the same perspective reset when checking out Season 2 PlayDate games.

Psychosis by Aaron Gilbert

Psychosis on a desktop

This horror game has some gnarly monster designs and lovely low-res textures. I enjoyed watching someone else fight off abominations while trying to find a key (I don't think they were successful). An early version is available to play!

Exon by Rao Dao Zao

Exon on a desktop

Exon is a narrative mech action-cRPG and I love how the graphics are unapologetically Of An Era and very cohesive. There's an older demo to try, and I also want to mention Rao Dao Zao's long-running blog. It is the year of the blog, after all! What you're reading right now-- it is, indeed, also a blog!

Scandimania

Scandimania on a desktop

This is a student project that's not online yet and I didn't catch the team name. While the gameplay was clunky, the graphics and textures were effective at setting a Dark Souls-y mood.

The character is made up of light, and instead of a healthbar, your character's brightness decreases as you get hurt. That's a cool idea. It was also cool to see what students without formal compsci training and who hadn't coded before can achieve over the course of a year. You can learn a lot in a short span of time! It is easy to forget, especially as you get older and have less free time, that learning new things is still very much possible and it might not even take that long to get somewhere!

Bonus: Cosmic

Cosmic placard with instructions and a low-poly alien inviting you to play the game

Just as the event was wrapping up and we were ushered to leave, I noticed this placard-sign-thing with what might be the most enticing invitation to play-slash-controls guide ever. I'm not sure if it's available online, as it's a student game and "Cosmic" is a very broad search term. Perhaps this game will forever remain a mystery to me...

Thanks for reading! If you're interested in getting involved with the Edinburgh indie scene, I'd recommend checking out the various links on the edindies website, and joining the Discord!