Seven Independent Acts Shine At SXSW Sydney 2025

A games showcase at SXSW Sydney showed off exactly what indie creators do best: brave themes, unique artwork and super smart mechanics that Triple-A would never lay a finger on.

There was more than one small team punching above its weight on the show floor, touching a nerve with the local scene where, based on the most recent developer surveys referenced by trade body IGEA, micro studios are in ascendancy and export audiences deliver most of the money.

Arriving after Melbourne International Games Week and PAX Aus, the showcase nonetheless attracted a healthy mix of originals and festival favorites. With prototypes becoming shippable projects thanks to Screen Australia’s Games Expansion Pack, the genre smash was on from narrative adventures to pocket tactics.

Mixtape by Beethoven & Dinosaur launches in 2025

From the Melbourne studio that brought us The Artful Escape, Mixtape feels like a beautifully washy John Hughes-fuelled reverie. It centers on three friends headed out to one final party, cutting between coming-of-age vignettes and glossy, cinematic set pieces — boardwalk cruises and teen mischief. The real star of the demo was its needle drops: licensed tracks from DEVO, Roxy Music, The Cure, Joy Division and others weave together the memories with genuine texture. It’s the type of soundtrack licensing that tells you immediately what a game is all about before someone even lands a line of dialogue. It’s due out in 2025 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

REAPRIEVE by 10PM Club targets PC in early 2027

So what would it look like if the Grim Reaper did IT support?

REAPRIEVE, by a five-person team in Melbourne, reformulates the metaphysical as a desk job. You play Milo, erasing “unnecessary” memories and salvaging the ones that count amid an onslaught of pop-ups, system prompts, and workplace performance targets. It’s half narrative satire, half time-attack UI triage game, but with a surprising emotional core when you realize that every click changes someone’s life. (The playable slice implies that such a rhythm-game cadence is lurking under all the office-chaos comedy.) It’s aiming for PC in early 2027.

Psychotic Bathtub by natsha donates profits to mental health

This point-and-click by (the Switzerland-based solo developer) natsha is blunt, unsettling, and truly unapologetic. Taking place during a psychotic episode in a bathroom, it challenges players to confront intrusive thoughts, self-sabotage and the fine line between numbing one’s pain and actually coping. Choices veer toward multiple endings, but the developer is upfront: This isn’t therapy. Notably, 50% of the profits are promised to mental health projects — an unusual and specific pledge that reflects the game’s purpose. It’s slated for 2026 on PC, and comes with serious content warnings that you should take seriously.

Way To The Woods by Anthony Tan returns as playable demo

A decade-long journey continues. Originally posted in prototype form back in 2015 by its teenage creator, Anthony Tan, before basking under the limelight of E3 this year — the mysterious and moodily atmospheric Way To The Woods makes its first welcome appearance after a long wait as an entirely playable slab. You control a deer and its fawn, making your way through quiet, post-human realms using bioluminescent antlers to light your way and environmental puzzles that punish recklessness rather than rewarding it. The art direction — that painterly lighting and ruinous calm — is still the hook, but the demo showed a surer mechanical hand, more readable level flow and gentler tutorial cues. No new date announced yet, but the craft is almost there to catch promise.

A Week in the Life of Asocial Giraffe by Quail Button

Social stealth combines with point-and-click puzzling in this Los Angeles-made charmer about an anxious giraffe just hoping to run errands without small talk. Friendly City, it turns out, is a town aggressively friendly. Conversations fill up an anxiety meter — let it reach the top and it’s game over, in catastrophic fashion. You’ll steer around chatterboxes, duck behind scenery and shuffle things into place to open up chat-free paths. It’s a clever metaphor for cognitive load with legible systems and generous checkpoints. Early 2026 on PC.

Kabuto Park by Doot Tiny Games is available on PC now

Released in May and issued so quietly you might have missed it if you blinked, Kabuto Park is a breezy, magnificently illustrated bug-battler that trades monster bloat for back-to-basics pleasure. You gather real-world bugs, train up a trio and engage in sumo-like showdowns that are brief but snappy when it comes to smart team construction. Having 40-plus critters to discover and the cozy, once-upon-a-vacation vibes that warm us up from within, it’s the rare battler content to continue being small and satisfying. Available now on PC, and it’s priced like an impulse purchase.

Is This Seat Taken? by Poti Poti Studio out now on multiple platforms

A minimalist puzzler from a Belgium–Spain team turns seating plans into brainteasers. Like a mark on a marble, every shape-character has preferences — window seats, friends close by, smelly folk away — and you juggle constraints in order to keep everyone happy on buses, in cinemas and restaurants. There’s a slight story about the angst of a rhombus character that no longer fits in with squares and circles, but this is ultimately just an excuse to provide some attractive puzzle fare inspired by tiling patterns from across the world. It was released in August and is now available on Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch and PC.

The throughline this year was less budget or scope than intent. Whether evoking nostalgia with vintage-record-collection precision, reframing end-of-life admin as office satire or coaxing empathy from quiet exploration, these seven indies demonstrate how festivals like SXSW Sydney remain crucial for discovery. In a market where attention is the scarcest resource, a well-run showcase still cuts through — and judging by the lines of players ready to meet these teams halfway.