Dear, IndieGames

Looking ahead at what adventures and stories March has to offer us. About 49 games and growing every week.

A quick look at how it works ↓

I’ve given the DIG Release Date Calendar a refresh to make it clearer, cleaner, and easier to explore.

If you’re looking for your next story-driven adventure, this is a good place to start

dearindiegames.com/release-date...

a cartoon of patrick and spongebob with the words team work below them Alt: This clip features the characters SpongeBob SquarePants and Patrick Star from the animated television series SpongeBob SquarePants. The scene depicts the two characters giving each other a high-five, with the text "TEAM WORK" displayed below the image. The show is produced by Nickelodeon, indicated by the "nick" logo in the top right corner.

Ahead of #TeaseYaGame on the 6th,

I would love for everyone to really get behind and involved with TYG (& PYG); check out, engage the games being teased. Share the movement with your communities / peers.

All help is super appreciated.

It means the absolute world to us dev's. 😊

a cartoon of spongebob saying " i 'm " while walking down a path ALT: a cartoon of spongebob saying " i 'm " while walking down a path

I have added it as a Feed page to watch.

Sorry for the assumption 😅

But yes, good. Hope all the replies help. Loved the game by the way, and look forward to anything you might be working on next. 😁

While I understand the frustration, I think its important to also take in that maybe they were not expecting it to be sad? If a game is shown to be cozy and wholesome, it creates an expectation.

I agree it shouldn't be a thumbs down, but its good to take the feedback and see what to do with it.

FYI for fellow narrative designers/game writers: the studio in question is Sentona Games and it’s my understanding they are currently interviewing to replace me. Be very careful with them. They were very nice to me and easy to work with right up until I needed the money I was promised.

For the last 5 years, I have pitched to @metacritic.com for our reviews to be included. Despite having 400+ reviews and 15 human staff, we're knocked back each time.

To see Metacritic instead approves outlets that publish reviews written entirely by AI (with AI "writers") is beyond disappointing. 😔

If it helps (although maybe that's where you heard about it) they should be removing any publication that uses AI.

Here's hoping you get approved one day, I haven't read many of your reviews, but the ones i have have been good.

bsky.app/profile/apzo...

Genre specific for sure!

If PR has taught me anything, the smaller, more specific the target audience – the higher the conversion rate. You might not get as many eyes on your game, but you have a more focused audience who know what they want.

Ye I hear that. Especially as Steam UI is where all the gamers will be, the filtering needs to better so we can wade through the 3,000+ demos listed.

The smaller, seasonal fests that focus on a genre/theme are nicer to work with. Had a blast with the detective festival and less than 300 games

I see I'm not the only one feeling the Next Fest fatigue, and from conversations on multiple discord servers I'm in, its a pretty common problem among creators.

Next Fest has increasingly made me anxious with every iteration. Ive chosen to do minimal coverage going forward. Use my time to check out games offline and discover games to follow and keep my eye on. But content? I dont have the time anymore

I've chosen to just do a big list of games that look interesting, but I've had zero time to actually play anything. Email inbox is also a mess, but thankfully not as bad as yours (I feel your pain).

I dont know about the steam page, but steamdb has an option to remove certain tags from the list – like disclosed AI content.

Most played games in Steam Next Fest

Highest rated games in Steam Next Fest

Curious to see the most played and the highest rated games during Steam Next Fest (that have a story-rich tag)?

Let's take a look on SteamDB

The Steam Next Fest promo image.

📢 INDIE DEVS WHO ARE IN NEXT FEST!

If you're participating and would like your demo/store page reposted to 37K+ Bluesky followers then drop it in the replies below*

*No games that use Gen-AI please and thank you.

Love how these pages are laid out and designed!

Also – obviously – huge fan of folklore and how it impacts culture and vice versa. Going to have a look 👀

Mythomorphosis: Second Edition: A game about how myths change over generations

gmurphy.itch.io/mythomorphosis

Story-Driven indiegames worth fighting for

Story-Driven indiegames full of corruption

Story-Driven indiegame pieces of the puzzle

Story-Driven indiegame cozy discoveries

It's the perfect storm of release dates and game reveals.

Black Voices in Gaming, Convergence, and Indie Fan Fest — showcase after showcase stacked with announcements, and now Steam Next Fest is keeping the momentum alive.

Here are the release dates revealed last week

Awesome list! A few on there that flew under my radar like the sky running out of catfish 😂

15 Must-Play Steam Next Fest Februrary 2026 Demos Fest responsibly.

It's time to fill your week with promising indies. Check out our Steam Next Fest demo list!

Steam Next Fest is now live!

If you’re not sure where to start, I’ve gathered 90 standout demos with rich worlds, thoughtful stories, and one unhinged adventure about ducks in space.

Oof, now I just need to be careful i dont get sucked in again. I think my willpower is stronger than last time

*remembers staying up till 6am to destroy a nation that refused an alliance*

Love an interesting investigation game (as can be seen there are a few on my list)!

I'll need to look up the previous one too, after I check this one out.

Don't forget to let me know what you have fun with this week!

Steam Next Fest From emotional journeys to wonderfully strange experiments, I’ve curated my Steam Next Fest highlights into one easy page. Watch the trailers, sort by genre, and dive straight into the demos.

Steam Next Fest is packed, and time is short.

So I've rounded up the emotional, thrilling, wonderful, strange, wholesome, and frightening into one page, sortable by genre.

If you’re diving into Next Fest, this should make things a little easier.

dearindiegames.com/steam-next-f...