John • Gaming In The Wild

store.steampowered.comGrimKeep on SteamGrimKeep is a roguelite dice-builder in a nightmare fairytale. Find items, roll your dice, and optimize your build to fire off massive damage. Cut through the horrors in the cursed city to get to the ...

14h

Ended up playing six or seven runs of the Grimkeep demo until I finally won one. I'm hooked. store.steampowered.com/app/3509380/...

youtube.com20 New Indie Games To Watch ● Next Fest Oct '26YouTube video by Gaming In The Wild

#NextFest has some wild demos. #Inkblood is set entirely inside a horse drawn carriage, and uses the interior as an ingenious diegetic UI. #AppleCrumble is a mystery game that feels like taking part in a creepy stage play. #APPULSE invents twin-stick pinball. You can still play most of 'em, too.

John • Gaming In The Wild reposted

Gonçalo Santos

@mushwrites.bsky.social

Here are my 11 Next Fest games to add to your wishlist, featuring a shout-out to @goodgamelobby.com and his love for Mr. RECORDS, a link a great piece written by @katyar.bsky.social about the excellent Curse of Resthaven. Also thank you to @gaminginthewild.com for his excellent indie round-up!

buttonmusher.substack.com11 Steam Next Fest Games To Put On Your WishlistFeaturing some links to fellow Substack writers.

store.steampowered.comProspice: Anomalous Logistics on SteamHaul cursed cargo across a haunted island, where the terrain can take your life and every road bears the scars of the past.

#Prospice: Death Stranding x Mudrunner, making horrid deliveries in a cursed, vibey world. I got my van permanently stuck nose-down in a river, and had to bail on the demo—it could rly use some kinda respawn/failsafe/jiggle—but it def has something good going on. #NextFest

It's wild that there are well funded games media platforms out there who ask creators to make unpaid/unmonetisable (legitimising) content for them, for access, codes, or worse—exposure. We get codes, we have access, and we have exposure, too—too much of it, if anything—the comments are a mess! 😅

Some projects we do for the vibes, or for fun. But when it's something with a C-suite staff, and VC money visibly pumping through its veins, it's a bit rich to ask us creators to make stuff for free, to legitimise the project. That clearly has value. So, value it!

store.steampowered.comElta: Defy All Gods - Demo on SteamMaster a blend of free-form melee combat, fluid platforming and sci-fi exploration in the Elta: Defy All Gods demo. Experience the beginning of the adrenaline-fueled action-platformer and become the c...

Wouldn't have guessed that a Prime-inspired third person brawlervania would be one of my best of #NextFest, but this was great.

youtu.beWhat To Play At Steam Next Fest • October 2026 Indie PicksYouTube video by Gaming In The Wild

#NextFest starts tomorrow! It's the time to play some indie weirdos, odd experiments, new contenders, dark horses, riders and runners. This 30-game selection is a rich mix: maybe something here will turn out to be the one.

store.steampowered.comSaraab: Beyond The Veil on SteamA psychological horror visual novel about healing, where saving your brother means facing your own demons. Elham’s search pulls her through visions and entities rooted in Arabian folklore, and family ...

Interesting looking VN. A hard genre to effectively demo, I'd say, but still.

store.steampowered.comMemoria Wake on SteamParry with precision and fight through shifting, surreal landscapes in this Souls-like action-adventure. When reality turns into a living nightmare, you must ascend through a shattered realm to rescue...

Some early ripples of appreciation for this going around. store.steampowered.com/app/3240610/...

videogameschronicle.comPlayStation 6’s memory costs alone exceed $680 per console, it’s claimed | VGCHardware insider suggests next-gen costs could well cost more than $1,000…

Hope you like cloud gaming. PS7 will probably be either a streaming box, or priced like a small car. AI is ruining fuckin everything.

John • Gaming In The Wild reposted

Hilltop Studios

@playhilltop.bsky.social

We are thrilled that Curse of Resthaven made @gaminginthewild.com's "What to Play at Steam Next Fest" roundup. Check us out at 8:33, and then watch the whole damn thing. And then play some great games from the list!

John • Gaming In The Wild@gaminginthewild.com

youtu.beWhat To Play At Steam Next Fest • October 2026 Indie PicksYouTube video by Gaming In The Wild

youtu.beWhat To Play At Steam Next Fest • October 2026 Indie PicksYouTube video by Gaming In The Wild

store.steampowered.comStackOn on SteamA card strategy game combining town building and dungeon adventures. Stack cards to manage your settlement, produce resources, battle enemies, and explore the unknown. Expand your floating island, col...

Also big thanks to layered (pun fully intended) deckbuilder #StackOn for sponsoring the video. Check it out at #NextFest if you're a fan of engrossing card games.

store.steampowered.comDREADMOOR Demo on SteamDREADMOOR is a dark first-person fishing adventure game set in a submerged world, rotting from a past catastrophe. Fish in murky waters, upgrade your boat, craft survival gear, and fight monstrous cre...

Still picking up games I would have thrown into the video if I'd seen them ahead of time! I'll list them in the thread. Cursed fishing is sohotrightnow. Dreadmoor: store.steampowered.com/app/5219790/...

John • Gaming In The Wild reposted

BloodyGoodReviews | Pirate PR

@piratepr.com

Love seeing our indies on lists like these 🙂 youtu.be/SxHD5CJgOt8?...

youtu.beWhat To Play At Steam Next Fest • October 2026 Indie PicksYouTube video by Gaming In The Wild

Making a Next Fest video today and man, for everyone who's bummed about how anodyne AAA games have become, this selection is full of bonkers experimental stuff. A game about a city on the back of a giant drill boring into the earth, a game about grabbing stars to curate a cosmic museum... fun stuff.

It must be weird to be Zohran Mamdani. Aside from The Work itself—running NYC, woah—he's gone from having these inspiring lighthouse icons, to becoming one himself. He knows his significance, and that his every word has to ring true. I love watching the focus he brings to every moment.

store.steampowered.comTenebris Somnia on SteamTenebris Somnia is a 2D retro survival horror adventure game with live action cutscenes created by an award winning film crew from Argentina. Unveil the depths of a disturbing story by solving puzzles...

An intriguing horror game drops today: #TenebrisSomnia. It mixes crunchy pixel environments with live, filmed cut scenes in the ~same place. There's something spooky about holding each scene in your imagination twice—like the two representations have a gap between them where weird things can happen.

Congrats @remedygames.com! So well deserved.

Visai Games | Venba is Available now!!

The #NextFest Play & Rate event is starting in the GITW patron Discord. With 6700+ (!) demos, its a way to collectively find what's good. Ppl drop ratings on what they played for real-time popularity stats, and there's a community top 10 at the end. Join up to join in! 🎮 patreon.com/gaminginthewild

John • Gaming In The Wild reposted

House House

@househouse.com

An explanation on why Big Walk isn't available on Xbox. bigwalk.game/xbox

John • Gaming In The Wild reposted

@visaigames.bsky.social

We're Visai Games! 👋 We made Venba, an award winning narrative cooking game. As outsiders to the industry, we found our following in twitter but logging into it now means coming face to face with a lot of South Asian racism. If you like Venba, Follow us here so we don't have to login to twitter!

Onimusha; Way of the Sword was fantastic. It takes a sec to warm up but it's *so* fun, man. They nailed this Spaghetti samurai cinematic feel. The duelling, parrying, countering & finishing never gets old. Huge spectacle boss fights. Open zones to muck around in. Sparkling script. S-tier video game.

store.steampowered.comBeyond The Plastic Wall on SteamSet off on an adventure set in a sprawling world that blends satisfying, mechanical puzzles with a rich narrative. Explore a stunning pixel-art world, repair intricate machines & meet unforgettabl...

Next Fest demos are starting to go live, even though it doesn't start until the 19th. Excited to try #BeyondThePlasticWall. The trailer rly made me wanna wander this dusty broken-down world and repair some salvaged tech.

news.xbox.comIntroducing XBOX LABSThis message was just sent to Team XBOX employees globally. Team, The first video games emerged some 75 years ago. In the time since, there have been booms and busts, but every year there are more gre...

So this is basically an AI gamedev initiative, launched without saying "AI" a single time, right? Just one "agents" and some hand wavy "new technologies". Because Asha knows everyone hates AI. She's spent a year trying to reassure everyone her AI past doesn't mean Xbox's AI future. Until this.

I'd put money on Asha's to-do list including something like "turn around gamer's negative perception of AI, because if they could only see...." etc. Expect her stance to go from "no AI slop" to "by leveraging new technologies, we were able to" within the first two years.

It's as if they think that the problem is people don't like the term "AI", rather than AI itself. And if they call it something else, surely we'll understand that it's good for us. Right? Right? Surely. But it's not about branding. Call it "agents", "new tech", whatever. We will still not like AI.

Idk if I shared it here but I make "Indie Game Of The Day" videos for YouTube Shorts & TikTok. This week: sheepdog sim #Huber, stealthy soulslike #ValorMortis, pyromaniac deckbuilder #BurnWithMe. If that sounds fun, follow: 🩳 youtube.com/@GamingInTheWild/shorts ✅🕰️ tiktok.com/@gaminginthewild

The "Reset" is revealed: slash human costs, lay off ~3,200 people, and launch an AI "Lab" to figure out how to make games without them. And see if you can structure the information so that people don't grok that's what happened.

techcrunch.comJust 5 years in, interactive chatbot platform Character.AI files for bankruptcyThe startup will sell some of its assets to Disney for $20 million.

What happens to a new industry that makes things nobody wants?

TechCrunch@techcrunch.com

Just 5 years in, interactive chatbot platform Character.AI files for bankruptcy

It seems that tech people sometimes imagine a desire without proving it. Meta imagined we all might like business meetings with gooby keyless avatars in a sensory deprivation mask. The metaverse mirage. NFTs imagined we might like paying vast sums to own easily replicable pixels.

Legless* avatars

techcrunch.comJust 5 years in, interactive chatbot platform Character.AI files for bankruptcyThe startup will sell some of its assets to Disney for $20 million.

What happens to a new industry that makes things nobody wants?

TechCrunch@techcrunch.com

Just 5 years in, interactive chatbot platform Character.AI files for bankruptcy

AI imagines we want to chat with uncanny-valley person impersonators, use search engines that roughly approximate correct information, but aren't sticklers on the correctness, use tools that approximate task execution but aren't up tight about executing them correctly. NFTs. Metaverse. AI. Nah.

techcrunch.comJust 5 years in, interactive chatbot platform Character.AI files for bankruptcyThe startup will sell some of its assets to Disney for $20 million.

What happens to a new industry that makes things nobody wants?

TechCrunch@techcrunch.com

Just 5 years in, interactive chatbot platform Character.AI files for bankruptcy

Look I'm no business person, but if I grok the basics, businesses usually make/do things that people desire/require. They meet a demand. But it seems that AI is not desired, or required, and there's no demand. It's a product people don't need, want, or like. Don't such businesses just... fail?

bloomberg.comEpic Games Delays Disney Project, Asks Developers to Use More AIThe company told the team behind the upcoming shooter that it will now be an ‘AI first’ production

Siri: how to popularise "Epic Slop Store"

Jason Schreier@jasonschreier.bsky.social

NEW: Epic Games has delayed its upcoming (not yet announced) Star Wars + Marvel shooter as it pivots to complete AI game development. "No more hand-written code," a director told staff. All art "generated with full AI workflows." Full scoop: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

Valve sends out a raw spreadsheet of everything that's in Next Fest. The Oct edition: 6977 games. I scrolled through the As helplessly, and my eyes rested on "A Game About Farting". Idk how to filter this wall of information. I guess it's back to press releases, dev tweets, and @jesseguarascia.com.

Had a weird cosmic experience recently viewing a total eclipse in thick cloud cover from a park in Reykjavík. My account: medium.com/@jhnrgrs/a-t...

patreon.comActually Gaming: End Of Abyss | John • Gaming In The WildActually Gaming: End Of Abyss by John • Gaming In The Wild on Patreon. Join John • Gaming In The Wild's community for exclusive content and updates.

This is a new series I'm doing called Actually Gaming. It's a change of gear from previewing & reviewing, with raw gameplay & contemporaneous chat. This one's unlocked for all; becoming a patron gets you the first episode—an hour of Onimusha with a crunching boss fight—and a new episode every week 💚

People who picked up a PS5 early on: is your Dual Sense controller battery degrading? Mine only stays on the full three bars of charge for about 15 mins, and it's drained after a couple of hours.

This is so funny. The comedy of the perceived detective work is priceless. And the skulls!

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youtu.beThe Indie Game Guide To OctoberYouTube video by Gaming In The Wild

One of the best thing about making these videos is that it offers motivation (obligation!) to be extremely attentive to what's coming out. The huge long-list gets built up & up, then whittled down & down to the final video selection. And then from that, I can cherry pick a few to play myself.

Some of the inclusions tend to be informational. Like, I'm very rarely going to pick up a co-op / cosy farming / tactics game myself. But if they seem to stand out within their genre in some way, they go in.

But like this month I'd never have known about End of Abyss or Silver Pines without doing the video research, and I'm having an amazing time with each of them.

Well, the trend shift hit finally critical mass: every game is no longer a roguelike, every game is now a co-op game.