The favorite NPR independent games at the GDC 2025: NPR

While the video game industry came down to San Francisco for the Conference of Games Developers of this year, one thing was clear: some of the biggest gaming ideas were born from its smallest teams.

During showcase events such as the annual developers’ day and the mixture, hundreds of independent developers were impatient to show players their new video games in progress.

Video games are a big business. Last year, the world market for games made an estimated $ 188 billion in incomeAccording to the Newzoo analysis company. And at the same time, more independent developers make games. In 2018, a little more 8,000 independent games were publishedAccording to information on video games. In 2024, VG Insights said that the number was skyrocketing more than 16,000. Sometimes these independent games became success in small groups, selling millions of copies and leading industry trends.

I played dozens of games during my visit to the conference. You will find below some of my favorites-titles that represent innovative design and daring narration for which the Indies are known.

Take us north

Take US North follows the journey of migrants and asylum seekers crossing the American-Mexican border. The player assumes the role of a migrant guide – often called “coyote” – braving the heat and dangers of the Sonora desert.

But why is a video game the right medium for this story? “These are the existential questions that we ask ourselves in the design session,” explains Karla Reyes, game developer and founder of Anima Interactive.

Reyes says that the project aims to be realistic and authentic. Part of the team’s research process included talking to migrants and other experts. And as much as the atmosphere and the atmosphere are part of this story, she explains, it is the power of interactivity that ultimately distinguishes video games.

“There is a lot of tension throughout this trip,” she said. “We want to create this immersive experience for the player: where you feel what it is to be in the desert.”

Take us north is still early in development. Although we do not yet know how much the game will balance the nuance of its subject with its mechanics, Anima Interactive clearly pulling an immense talent to build a project which aims to directly change hearts and minds.

“When we think of who we try to target with this game, we don’t just want to preach to converts,” said Reyes. “But the hypothesis is that there is a large part of the population which simply does not know much about this because it is not well covered in the consumer media.”

Out of sight

Out of sight started with a premise of design that folds: what does a game from the point of view of the “second person” look like? In the game, you control a blind girl who tries to get safe. The torsion? You see all the action through the eyes of his teddy bear, while you move the girl in the environment.

“The eyes you see are not the character you control,” said the creative director by Hallros. This contrasts with a first -person game, like Call of Duty, where you see the action from the point of view of the main character. “You know you are no longer just a camera,” he explains.

Developers often preach that a good video game camera is the one you don’t notice. Out of sight challenges, this idea and draws its fear from this new disorienting perspective.

Beatdown City survivors

Shawn Alexander Allen left the Rockstar Games 13 years ago and became something of a full -fledged rock star video game. Beatdown City Survivors is his latest project. Like his previous game, that the Los Angeles Times called “The most anti -racist game of 2020”, “ The intoxicating concepts are hidden behind its comic strip aesthetics.

“I was thinking of making a game that deals with structural decomposition,” he said. Originally from New York, Allen says that the visuals of the game materialized by looking at the waste and the garbage spreading in the streets of the city after a rain storm. He met this idea with a Escape New York-Thyle story, where New York becomes a penitentiary state.

This informed thoughtful subtext which seems to be a chaotic entry and compulsively playable in the genre of survivors, where to fight the hordes of enemies in search of higher scores is the name of the game.

Hop

As Mario has proven it for decades, little pleasures of video games go beyond the race and the jump. But where can platforms go next? Despite the retro aesthetics of Big Hops, which looks like rare games like Banjo-Kazoie, the director of the game Chris Wade tries to push the genre in a new territory.

Wade says that big budget video games could be pretty on the surface, but not necessarily more immersive and interactive. Big Hops is an answer to this trend. You play like a frog running, jumping, swinging and climbing in a very responsive environment, “where the world is your playground and you can use it as a tool,” explains Wade.

The short demo I played showed an example of this philosophy. I used inflatable mushrooms like trampolines so that I can reach and place vines on cliffs I need to climb later. Imagine a slice of Zelda’s legend: the tears of “do anything” of the combined kingdom with the Super Mario 64 speed – this is the kind of game that Big Hops promises to be.

All systems dance

Sometimes a game checks all your boxes. For me, all the systems dance. Rhythm game? Check. Aesthetics reminiscent Jet Set radio? Check. A story about a dancer from Renégat using their powers to retaliate against a business giant? Check.

Dave Proctor, creative director of the project, says that this game stands out for other rhythm games because it encourages expression and experimentation. Although you get additional points to stay on the pace, you are free to walk. “If people feel expressive and played in a space as they wish, I think it’s great,” explains Proctor.

While all the systems dance a little buggy during our demonstration session, the frame and the color of the game – a futuristic hellish landscape which seems to be modeled after an Apple advertisement from the late 90s – made me want to check more.

at a t

The upcoming game at a t is the last of innovative designer Keita Takahashi and her studio, Uvula. The main character of the game, a young teenager sailing in his small town, is stuck in a “pose” – the basic position that a character takes while being faked by a host. Basically, standing standing with arms stuck on the side. A character like this usually makes an appearance in video games through accidental problems. But Takahashi uses the idea of ​​comic effect, because your character makes a way through banal tasks like pouring milk into a bowl of cereals.

A story of transition to adulthood, for a T, feels much less narratively abstract and relatable than the previous games of Takahashi. “I don’t know if it’s emotional or not,” says Takahashi when I point out, “but it’s a bit new to me.”

New because he was born from a kind of moral responsibility that he is currently feeling today. The game emerged, says Takahashi, when he heard climate activists say that they did not want to have children. “I have to focus on the next generation,” he said.

This game is trying to deliver this message: a light story with a vision full of hope for adolescence, made for a generation that may never have heard of the successful series of Takahasi Kata Damacy Damacy.