Introduction

I was inspired by Perfect Dark’s Steam Deck / Gaming News series and wanted to create a similar blog-post type series highlighting recently released lesser known traditional and experimental indie games.

Since this is my first post, I’m extending the definition of recently released to anything released in 2025 and I will primarily be focusing on games released on itch.io in 2025 that may have been overlooked.

I’m a big supporter of itch.io as a store front since they offer larger cuts to developers compared with other digital stores and all the games are DRM-Free. Many of the games are available for free or Pay What You Want and can be played in the browser without an account.

They also regularly have large 100+ game charity bundles, so it’s quite easy to amass a large library of games there. There is currently a Bundle for Ukrainian Hospitals that is live, but that is primarily TTRPGs. If you have purchased multiple of these charity bundles in the past Random Bundle Game is a good resource for sorting through your collection.

One of the negatives of itch.io, however, is that the store is very difficult to navigate. If you go to the main page it will be mostly be filled with short horror games and visual novels (and depending on your settings, adult games). One might be mistaken for thinking that’s all there is on the store, but with this post I hope to highlight games from a wider variety of genres.

If you’re new to itch.io and experimental games and interested in reading more, I highly recommend this recent post by Nathalie Lawhead on A crash course introduction into experimental indie games: Arthouse Games as a force for good & the activism of video games as a primer.

Now without further ado, on to the games:

A Selection of Games Released on itch.io in 2025

Dragonsweeper | Jan. 15, 2025 (Free)

A roguelike minesweeper adventure

This one was a lot of fun. Like with regular Minesweeper, winning does seem to rely on luck, but there is still some strategy.

Type Help | Jan. 25, 2025 (Free)

A puzzle-mystery game inspired by Return of the Obra Dinn, Her Story, Unheard and The Roottrees are Dead.

Investigate the files on an old computer that once belonged to a mysterious outside agent.

The files detail the gruesome story of Galley House, a case that was said to be unsolvable.

What really happened at Galley House? And what did the agent find out that lead to their death?

Delve through deeper and deeper layers of mystery as you piece together the grand puzzle.

And remember… There are no ghosts in Galley House!

I started playing this one, but haven’t finished it yet. For an interactive fiction game I think it’s pretty beginner friendly.

Wednesdays | March 26, 2025

Part video game, part graphic novel, Wednesdays seeks to raise awareness about child sexual abuse through a surprisingly hope-filled story.

It tells the story of Timothée who has been abused as a kid and is going through his memories by replaying a video game from his childhood.

The game does not include any graphic representation of sexual abuse, and even if its topic might sound grim, Wednesdays is above all about trust, hope and healing.

You can find a list of the content warnings on ARTE’s website.

Wednesdays is created by Pierrec (Haven, Road 96: Prologue, Bury Me, My Love), Exaheva (Still Heroes), Christophe Galati (Save Me Mr Tako), Virginia B. Fernson (Lorsque Les Volcans Dorment), Nico Nowak (There Is No Game: Wrong Dimension), Diane Landais (A Normal Lost Phone, Alt Frequencies) and Florent Maurin (Bury Me My Love, Inua, The Wreck)

I’m not really in the right place for tackling a game with this serious of a theme, but from the list of creators, I trust that it is handled well.

The Beekeeper’s Picnic | March 29, 2025

It is the 1920s, and in a sleepy Sussex village, beekeeper and former world’s greatest detective Sherlock Holmes is trying to arrange a pleasant clifftop picnic for his lifelong companion Dr Watson. The only problem is that a series of mysteries keep getting in the way!

With games like Old Skies and Rosewater, we’ve been spoiled this year with high quality point and click adventure games made in Adventure Game Studio. I haven’t gotten a chance to try this one yet, but it looks very charming.

DOMINO: DECLASSIFIED (March 1 - April 6, 2025)

DOMINO CLUB is a loose collective of digital artists coming together to participate in anonymous game jams, inspired by BELIEVEINTHE.NET’S 1JAM.

DOMINO CLUB is interested in: small tools, web tools, low-tech tools, ditherpunk, low-poly, sustainability, narrative-heavy experiences, digital spaces, dark matter, web 1.0, DIY, piracy, remix, being gay & doing crimes, goofing off, zines, skeletons, glitches, little guys, hole

This one is the latest collection of short games released by DOMINO CLUB. I haven’t played any of this set of games yet, but there were some gems in some of their previous game jams. A warning that many of their games feature adult content.

Stealth Crossword | April 20, 2025 (Free)

The forced stealth mission in a game that really shouldn’t have one

This one is silly but surprisingly enjoyable.

Cattle Crisis | May 2, 2025

Cattle Crisis is an arcade shoot 'em up game (Shmup). Pilot your fighter jet to defeat evil aliens and save our precious cows! Cattle Crisis is a short game and currently features one level.

Over the past year, I’ve become a big fan of PICO-8, which is a fantasy 8-bit video game console. Probably the most well-known game made in this engine is the original Celeste. I’m not that good at Shmups, but I enjoyed this one.

Make Ten Deluxe | May 11, 2025

Make Ten Deluxe is an expansion pack that builds on the original Make Ten, featuring 35+ variant modes. Some modes modify the rules slightly in ways that significantly change the flavor of the game, some modes are particularly puzzley situations for you to solve, and some modes are too strange and specific to describe.

Another PICO-8 game. I played the prototype game that came out last year and it was surprisingly addictive for how simple it is. I’m glad it was expanded to a larger game with more modes.

Dominoid | June 1, 2025 (Free)

DOMINOID is an arcade-styled puzzle game about stacking dominids! CLEAR pieces by forming RINGS with matching tiles. Create huge COMBOS by stacking dominids effectively. Collect BADGES for major accomplishments. Earn EXP by clearing dominids to go towards a LEVEL UP. Can you get all the way to LEVEL 10?

I haven’t had much of a chance to get into this one yet, but I’m always open to new action-puzzle games.

W.C.A.T. - The Wing Commander AllTinker Overhaul Mod | June 12, 2025

This is a new mod for Wing Commander to make it easier to play on modern computers. I’ve been using Wing Loader, which I got running on Steam Deck, but haven’t managed to find a good control scheme yet, so I might give this one a try.

Choice Beat, Issue 14 | June 14, 2025 (Free)

ChoiceBeat is the world’s MOST POWERFUL zine dedicated to visual novels, interactive fiction, narrative games, and other forms of choice-heavy, text-heavy digital games. This issue features 30+ pages of news, articles, reviews, previews, and interviews including:

If you are a fan of visual novels and interactive fiction, I highly recommend checking out this zine series. There’s a lot of great articles and I’ve been introduced to a lot of interesting games.

Thanks for Reading

If you’ve read this far, I hope you’ve found something interesting to try. Please feel free to shout out other itch.io games you’ve been enjoying in the comments that I missed.