7 of the best indie video games at SXSW Sydney 2025 by way of NewsFlicks

SXSW Sydney returned for its 3rd yr this October, bringing the tech, movie, tune, and video games pageant to Australia yet again. As at all times, this integrated a slew of impartial online game builders appearing off their newest initiatives.

October is a huge month for the Australian online game trade, with Melbourne Global Video games Week and PAX Aus held the week in an instant previous to SXSW Sydney. Thankfully, there have been nonetheless many indie builders who got here to turn Sydney what they have got to supply.

In no explicit order, listed below are probably the most coolest indie video games we looked at this yr at SXSW Sydney 2025. Maximum are nonetheless in building, however there are a couple of you’ll be able to already play now.

Mixtape

Mixtape from Melbourne-based studio Beethoven & Dinosaur could also be the nearest a online game has ever gotten to encapsulating an ’80s John Hughes film. The second one name from the builders of The Clever Get away, Mixtape is a story journey recreation following 3 buddies as they head to at least one remaining celebration, reminiscing about their time in combination as highschool involves an finish.

The cinematic gameplay proven within the demo made Mixtape really feel like stepping right into a nostalgic ’80s teenager film, entire with skateboards, shenanigans, and a great soundtrack. The sport options tune from a slew of bands from the ’80s, together with DEVO, Roxy Song, Lush, The Smashing Pumpkins, Iggy Pop, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Pleasure Department, and The Remedy.

Mixtape is scheduled for unlock in 2025 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Sequence X/S, and PC.

REAPRIEVE

Evolved by way of five-person Melbourne studio 10PM Membership, REAPRIEVE follows Milo, a grim reaper tasked with deleting a soul’s “needless” reminiscences whilst saving others. This job has been digitised right into a table activity, in order that moderately than wielding a scythe, Milo and his colleagues spend their days in entrance of computer systems, ultimate pop-ups and striving to win Worker of the Week.

REAPRIEVE‘s artwork route and topics appear moderately paying homage to the Character sequence to start with look. On the other hand, 10PM Membership’s ingenious director and narrative clothier Althea Francisco informed Mashable that the sport attracts extra inspiration from Severance‘s company atmosphere and Papers, Please‘s difficult empathetic dilemmas. It can be your activity to delete all of a soul’s glad reminiscences, however is it proper?

REAPRIEVE is scheduled for unlock in early 2027 on PC.

Psychotic Bath 

Psychotic Bath is the type of recreation that includes a cause caution, and with excellent explanation why. This point-and-click recreation offers with heavy topics equivalent to suicide, demise, guilt, self-destruction, intrusive ideas, and escapism, prompting Switzerland-based developer natsha to warn towards enjoying if any of those problems cause you.

The sport follows a girl having a psychotic episode whilst taking a tub, which comes to speaking to her rubber duck, ingesting wine, and brooding about at the nature of her towel. Avid gamers navigate her via her darkish ideas, deciding which of them she embraces and which of them she rejects on easy methods to considered one of a couple of endings.

Regardless that Psychotic Bath specializes in a fictional psychiatric dysfunction, the sport is meant to boost consciousness of psychological well being problems. natsha has pledged to donate 50 p.c of the earnings from Psychotic Bath to psychological well being initiatives. On the other hand, you have to notice that it isn’t a healing recreation, with gamers not likely to stroll away comforted.

Psychotic Bath is deliberate for unlock in 2026 on PC.

Means To The Woods

Means To The Woods has a protracted historical past. The sport first got here to consideration in 2015 when then 16-year-old Melbourne scholar Anthony Tan posted screenshots to Reddit, which have been spotted and shared to Twitter by way of Sean Murray from developer Hi Video games (creators of No Guy’s Sky). Regardless that its tale and gameplay had no longer but been made up our minds, Means To The Woods garnered popular pastime, spell binding other folks with pictures of a deer and fawn traversing a global devoid of people.

There were a number of trailers and introduced unlock home windows for Means To The Woods within the decade since, together with a statement at E3 2019 that it will pop out the following yr. All of those unlock dates had been overlooked. 

Thankfully, the sport might in spite of everything be just about release, particularly taking into account that Tan was once assured sufficient to turn it at SXSW Sydney this yr. Now working below the studio title onepixel.canine, Tan informed Mashable that he expects to complete Means To The Woods inside six months. Even so, no new unlock date has formally been introduced.

A Week within the Lifetime of Asocial Giraffe

To other folks with social nervousness, navigating society can every so often really feel like an unsolvable puzzle. A Week within the Lifetime of Asocial Giraffe takes this a step additional, turning such dilemmas right into a point-and-click puzzle recreation.

Evolved by way of Los Angeles-based Quail Button, A Week within the Lifetime of Asocial Giraffe follows the titular animal as he makes an attempt to run on a regular basis errands with out speaking to any person. Sadly, the electorate of Pleasant Town are probably the most chattiest other folks round, and can in an instant have interaction Asocial Giraffe in dialog the instant they spot him. This reasons his nervousness to height and his head to blow up.

As such, our shy-hoofed hero should sparsely steer clear of other folks whilst nonetheless making an attempt to reach his objectives, resorting to ways equivalent to hiding at the back of stumbling blocks and shifting pieces to entice other folks in different places. 

A Week within the Lifetime of Asocial Giraffe is scheduled for unlock in early 2026 on PC.

Kabuto Park

Launched in Would possibly, Kabuto Park is a brief, captivating recreation about catching and combating insects whilst on a summer season holiday. Construct your crew of 3 bugs, degree them up, and undergo a gauntlet of sumo-style trojan horse fights to win the name of Summer season Beetle Battles champion. It is principally like a extra relax, healthy model of Pokémon, simplest more effective and with actual trojan horse species.

Created by way of French developer Doot Tiny Video games, Kabuto Park provides a comfortable, fantastically illustrated bug-collecting enjoy with over 40 lovable bugs to catch. (For those who’re involved, arachnophobes don’t have any wish to concern — Kabuto Park is freed from spiders.) Other species have other stats and talents, and gamers too can purchase sweet to degree them up, making a living by way of profitable battles or promoting surplus insects. It is an addictive gameplay loop that is simple to settle into, offering a pleasing few hours of stress-free gaming for simply $US5.

Kabuto Park is to be had now on PC.

Is This Seat Taken?

Is This Seat Taken? is a puzzle recreation which duties gamers with assigning seating to shape-based characters in more than a few chair-based places, equivalent to buses, cinemas, and eating places. On the other hand, every personality has other necessities. One might wish to be close to a selected particular person, every other may wish to steer clear of individuals who stink (truthful), whilst a 3rd may simply need a seat subsequent to a window. Avid gamers should subsequently transfer the characters round to discover a seating association which satisfies everybody.

The sport does have somewhat little bit of a plot, with an aspiring rhombus actor looking for self belief in a global ruled by way of squares and circles (and finishing up in more than a few locales that includes seating alongside the best way). Even so, it is in reality the gameplay that’s the draw right here. Evolved by way of Poti Poti Studio, which has individuals in each Belgium and Spain, Is This Seat Taken? was once launched in August this yr. 

Is This Seat Taken? is to be had now Android, iOS, Nintendo Transfer, and PC.