Someone made a game about being a house looking for love
No verão de 2024, o Day of the Devs reuniu vinte e um jogos independentes — seis a mais do que no ano anterior — como um lembrete de que as margens da indústria continuam sendo onde a imaginação mais arde. De simuladores de escalada que punem o descuido a histórias contadas apenas por sons na neve, os estúdios presentes não disputavam tendências, mas expandiam o que um jogo pode ser. É um evento que, ano após ano, devolve à mídia interativa algo que os grandes lançamentos às vezes esquecem: a estranheza generosa do experimento humano.
- Com 21 títulos anunciados — contra 15 em 2023 —, o showcase sinalizou um crescimento tanto em volume quanto em ambição criativa dos estúdios independentes.
- A tensão entre conforto e perturbação dominou a seleção: jogos aconchegantes sobre pássaros e fantasmas conviveram com horror psicológico, mutações em zoológicos e distopias corporativas.
- Títulos como UFO50 (50 jogos completos em um só) e Screenbound (dois mundos interdependentes em telas diferentes) desafiam as convenções de formato e colocam a própria estrutura do jogo em questão.
- A maioria dos anúncios aponta para lançamentos entre 2024 e 2025 em PC, consoles e mobile, com alguns títulos exclusivos ao serviço Netflix Games — indicando novos caminhos de distribuição para o segmento indie.
O Summer Game Fest encerrou sua edição de 2024 da forma habitual: cedendo o palco ao Day of the Devs, vitrine dedicada aos estúdios independentes. Desta vez, vinte e um jogos foram apresentados — seis a mais do que no ano anterior — e a variedade foi impressionante.
Entre os destaques, Cairn, da The Game Bakers, coloca o jogador no papel de um alpinista obcecado tentando uma façanha inédita. Os controles simulam a escalada com realismo brutal, os checkpoints são escassos e colocados pelo próprio jogador, e certas paredes funcionam como verdadeiras batalhas contra o terreno. Chega ao PC e consoles em 2025. Já Fear the Spotlight, produzido pela Cozy Game Pals com a Blumhouse, é uma homenagem ao horror dos anos 1990 e à estética do PlayStation original: duas adolescentes invadem uma escola à noite e algo sai muito errado. Lançamento ainda em 2024.
O horror marcou presença em mais de um título. Karma: The Dark World mergulha o jogador na mente de um agente corporativo numa distopia sombria, enquanto Zoochosis transforma um zoológico infectado num pesadelo de sobrevivência onde as escolhas do jogador determinam o desfecho.
Nos jogos mais tranquilos, Simpler Times — sobre uma jovem se despedindo da casa da infância entre discos e pássaros — finalmente chegou ao Steam. Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit estreia em 25 de junho exclusivamente no Netflix Games, e A Little to the Left ganha novo DLC com mais de cem desafios de organização.
Alguns títulos brincaram com a própria forma do jogo. Screenbound conecta um mundo 3D a um jogo 2D rodando num dispositivo portátil dentro do jogo — ações em uma camada afetam a outra. Arranger faz com que cada movimento da protagonista desloque toda a sua fileira no mundo, transformando a locomoção em quebra-cabeça. E UFO50 reúne cinquenta jogos completos apresentados como se fossem o catálogo de uma empresa fictícia dos anos 1980, com gêneros variados, campanhas próprias e até sequências internas. Lança em 18 de setembro no Steam.
O showcase confirmou o que já se sabe sobre o desenvolvimento independente: enquanto a indústria maior persegue fórmulas, são os estúdios menores que continuam perguntando o que um jogo ainda pode ser.
Summer Game Fest wrapped up this year the way it always does—with Day of the Devs, the showcase that lets independent studios step into the spotlight. This time around, twenty-one games made the cut, up from fifteen the year before, and they arrived in every flavor you could want: games about climbing mountains, games about postal workers snooping on neighbors, games where you play as a house looking for love, games that will genuinely unsettle you.
The range was genuinely wild. Stoneskip's Simpler Times, which appeared here last year too, finally launched today on Steam—it's about a young woman named Taina preparing to leave her childhood home, spending time listening to records, watching birds, building birdhouses, painting. The whole thing is about finding beauty in ordinary moments. On the other end of the spectrum, Cozy Game Pals (yes, that's the studio name) made Fear the Spotlight with Blumhouse, a love letter to old-school horror films and the unsettling 3D graphics of the original PlayStation era. Two teenagers sneak into a school after dark. Things go wrong. One of them, Vivian, has to save her friend Amy from something genuinely dark. It arrives on PlayStation, Xbox, Switch, and PC before the year ends.
The Game Bakers is finishing what they call their "freedom" trilogy with Cairn, a game about climbing a mountain that will kill you if you're not careful. You play as an obsessed climber attempting something no one has done before, using realistic climbing simulator controls to get there. The game is brutal—you'll die repeatedly, and checkpoints are limited and placed by you, meaning you can lose serious progress. One particularly nasty wall plays like a boss fight. It's coming to PC and consoles in 2025. Meanwhile, Capybara Games reimagined their own Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes as Battle Vision Network, a competitive multiplayer game set in space where players take turns launching attacks and building unit formations in matching colors. Different teams have different strategic advantages, and you can customize units with collectible cosmetics. It's heading to mobile, PC, and console.
There was an unusual amount of horror this year. Pollard Studio's Karma: The Dark World puts you in the mind of Daniel, an agent for the Leviathan Corporation in a dystopian 1984, diving into people's minds to uncover truth. What he finds is disturbing enough to shake his loyalty to the company. The game promises psychological and physical terror—it's not for the squeamish. Clapperheads made Zoochosis, which might have won the award for strangest premise: you're a zookeeper at a facility where animals have been infected with something turning them into mutants. You can save them by creating a vaccine, but first you have to survive them. Your choices shape the ending. Both are coming to multiple platforms later.
The cozy games held their own. Spry Fox's Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit arrives June 25 exclusively on Netflix Games—no ads, no microtransactions, just the familiar comfort of befriending ghost bears, helping them find peace, and building out a bustling camp. A Little to the Left, the organizing puzzle game, is getting new DLC called Seeing Stars with thirty-three new levels, five bonus stages, and a hundred new challenges, arriving June 25 across Steam, Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation.
Some games played with form itself. Crescent Moon Games and They Dang Games made Screenbound, where you explore a 3D world while holding a GameBoy-like device running a 2D game—actions in one world affect the other. Kill enemies in 2D and the path opens in 3D. Solve puzzles in 3D and progress in 2D. Furniture & Mattress's Arranger follows Jemma through a world where every time she moves, her entire row moves with her like a conveyor belt, and you solve puzzles by understanding this constraint. It arrives July 25 on PS5, PC, and Switch. Mossmouth's UFO50 is a collection of fifty complete games imagined as if they were released by a fictional company called UFO Soft for a fictional console—some are arcade-style, some have full campaigns, all are different genres, all are completable with credits. They get more advanced as you progress through the "company's history," and some even have sequels or story connections. It launches September 18 on Steam.
Other standouts included Nano Park Studios' Petal Runner, a Game Boy Advance-style RPG about two messengers delivering packages in a world where flowers fuel virtual pets; Studio Tolima's Koira, a wordless narrative told through sound and music about freeing a puppy from a trap and getting home through a snowy forest while avoiding hunters; and DigixArt's Tides of Tomorrow, an asynchronous multiplayer game on an ocean planet where one player's actions ripple into another's story—you might hide a knife for someone else to find during their escape. Most of these are coming in 2024 or 2025 across PC, console, and mobile platforms. The showcase proved again that indie developers aren't chasing trends—they're building the kinds of games that make you think differently about what games can be.
Notable Quotes
The Game Bakers is finishing what they call their 'freedom' trilogy with Cairn— Day of the Devs 2024 announcements
The Hearth Conversation Another angle on the story
Why does a showcase like Day of the Devs matter when there are so many games released every week?
Because it's curated. These twenty-one games didn't get here by algorithm or marketing spend. Someone looked at what independent studios were making and said: these are worth your time. That's rare.
I noticed a lot of horror games this year. Is that a trend, or just what happened to get selected?
Both, probably. Horror is having a real moment in indie development—it's intimate, it doesn't need AAA budgets, and it can be genuinely unsettling in ways that big-budget games sometimes aren't. But also, horror just works at a showcase. It's memorable. You remember Fear the Spotlight because it's weird and specific.
What struck you most about the range of games?
The fact that someone made a game about being a house looking for love, and it's not a joke—it's just a sincere, silly adventure. That's the freedom indie development gives you. You can't pitch that to a publisher. You just make it.
Several games are exclusive to Netflix Games. Does that change what indie development looks like?
It's a new kind of distribution, which is good and complicated. Netflix is funding games, which means money for developers. But it also means some games only reach people with a subscription. That's different from Steam, where anyone can buy it.
How many of these games will actually ship on time?
Honestly? Maybe half. Game development is unpredictable. But that's not a failure—it's just the reality. The ones that do ship will be worth the wait.
What should someone actually play from this list if they only have time for one?
If you want something that will stay with you, Fear the Spotlight. If you want something that makes you feel good, Cozy Grove: Camp Spirit. If you want something that makes you think about how games work, Screenbound.