SEA GAME DEV COLLECTIVE DIGEST - April/May 2025 Edition
Editor’s Note
As I was scrambling to write this Editor’s Note for the April and May 2025 Edition of the SEA Game Dev Collective Digest, I realized everyone in the collective is crazy busy at this time. We have Nissie, Arief and Sam putting the finishing touches on their incredible Southeast Asian Games Showcase, JT just launched SEDAP! with Kopiforge, Sarah is busy with Toge on a flurry of announcements including demos for Coffee Talk Tokyo and Whisper Mountain Outbreak, Kenzie is off in China on a narrative designer adventure, and William and Ardhan are busy cooking their respective upcoming games Kooeh and Agni. As for me, I’ve been back to back on some work travels, but also helping to coordinate an upcoming Publisher-Developer event for Singapore devs as well as a few other community initiatives.
I’m really proud of our collective, but even more so, I’m proud of all the SE Asia community: all the amazing game releases, announcements, things in work, community efforts and initiatives, and people who are constantly out there giving their time, their energy, their expertise, collaborating, contributing all for the betterment of our region.
Summer Games Fest is coming soon, and with it, a ton of awesome new games to be hyped for, both from SE Asia and across the world. I encourage you all to tune into the Southeast Asian Games Showcase (12pm PST June 7), but I do know that we’ll see SE Asian games across a wide range of events and moments in the coming weeks. Go support them all <3 and take care of yourselves.
Jun Shen Chia - Xbox Strategic Market Expansion for SE Asia, and Singapore Games Association Vice-Chair.
Game Releases, Launches, Updates
We’re excited by all the recent releases from Southeast Asia in April, May 2025:
APRIL
12 - Ravenlock: Legendary Edition by Cococumber (Malaysia)
14 - Potat DEMO by Hexe Circles (Thailand)
18 - Mirage: Ignis Fatuus by Illam (Singapore)
19 - HR Simulator by Animesme, Sangnila (Indonesia)
22 - Funguys Swarm DEMO by Stairway Games (Indonesia)
23 - Havendock by YYZ Studio (Singapore)
MAY
3 - Repeat After Death DEMO by Exploding Soes (Indonesia)
4 - Asbak DEMO by Team Fossil, Vifth Floor (Indonesia)
5 - Unrivaled Heroes: 2.5D Brawler DEMO by GingerSun Games, Soft Source (Indonesia)
6 - Angel: Revenge Begins by Seblacc Soft (Indonesia)
6 - A Slight Chance of Sawblades DEMO by Chinykian Games (Singapore)
7 - Captain Blood by Seawolf Studio, General Arcade (Singapore)
7 - Bits of Love: An Otome Game DEMO by Milk Tea Creatives (Indonesia)
10 - What Comes After (consoles) by Glory Jam (Indonesia)
16 - Undying Flower by Calcatz, Indie.io (Indonesia)
21 - Death and Faeology DEMO by Mushroomallow (Indonesia)
22 - SEDAP! by Kopiforge (Singapore)
22 - Sunset Drive by Klapanom (Indonesia)
26 - Whisper Mountain Outbreak DEMO by Toge Productions (Indonesia)
27 - Relic Abyss DEMO by Reverse Loop (Philippines)
29 - Slap ‘em UP! CLOSED BETA TEST by Urnique Studio (Thailand)
29 - Eat the Rich DEMO by Maccima Games, Monstronauts (Philippines)
29 - Coffee Talk Tokyo DEMO by Chorus Worldwide, Toge Productions (Indonesia)
Also check out all the games that have launched from the region on VirtualSEA’s amazing resource here. Also, Southeast Asia Game Wiki has just updated their game database, which now features 800+ games.
In other gaming news…
Events, events, events
Southeast Asian Games Showcase goes live on June 7, 12pm PST and promises to be jam-packed with exclusive reveals, new trailers, and updates from 45+ games from the region. Watch it here.
Also check out their X.com page to learn more about Watch Parties popping up all over the region in support of the showcase.
Unreal Fest Bali is happening June 25 - 26 and promises 50+ inspiring sessions over 2 days and the opportunity to connect with Team Unreal. Members from the SE Asia dev community including Agate and Barking Kitten Interactive will be delivering talks.
Offbrand Games announces Secret Sauce indie event in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a livestreamed showcase, deep-dive talks, and booth on July 18 - 20. Submissions open here.
Malaysia’s Game Developer conference Level Up KL is back from October 6 - 8 this year. Developers can apply to participate here.
Indie Jam Malaysia, organized by Magic Rain took place from April 25 - 26 in Kuala Lumpur, featuring 3.5k attendees, 45+ games on showcase, the first IGDA Mentor Cafe in Asia, an Indie Jam Direct and accompanying Steam festival. Additionally read VirtualSEA’s coverage of Indie Jam here, and NMIA Gaming’s coverage here.
Ludanarracon took place recently from May 1 - 5, featuring games from SE Asia as well as a panel led by Samantha Low (20M Podcast), featuring Rhea Gupte (imissmyfriends.studio), Scott Chen (Sigono), Juan Fandino Martin (Mabaroshi Artworks) discussing narrative games with themes of memories, home, nostalgia, and the surreal.
The Games Exchange: Australia x Indonesia Edition hosted by Noble Steed and IGG Indonesia took place on May 17 (Indonesia) and May 23 (Australia), sharing 12 titles between the two communities.
Southeast Asia Game Aesthetic released the second edition of the Southeast Asia Spotlight featuring Mira Wardhaningsih from Storytale.
SEDAP! by Kopiforge (Singapore) recently won Best New Game Award at the BIG Festival at Gamescom LATAM. It also just launched here.
Game updates
GameChanger Studio (Indonesia) recently announced their upcoming narrative sim 1998: The Toll Keeper Story.
NMIA Gaming recently covered several SE Asia-made games including Building Relationships (Tan Ant Games, Thailand), 1998: The Toll Keeper Story (GameChanger Studio, Indonesia), Nullspace (Kaigan Games, Malaysia), and Love in Tiny Spaces (BattleBrew Productions, Singapore).
Glowkeeper by oolimry and bucketfish (Singapore) released a demo for their luminescent puzzle game about manipulating elements, which you can try here!
Ookami Okami by Mushroomallow (Indonesia), a visual novel project made for Otome Jam 2025’s Steam page is now live! If you’re a fan of isekai (transported into another world) stories, traditional Japanese aesthetics, folklore, and slow-burn romance, please add it to your wishlist!
Digital Happiness recently had their online showcase to coincide with their studio’s 11th birthday, and announced 3 new games DreadOut 3, Broomstick Exorcist, and Jurnal Risa: Dark Destiny. Find out more here.
Industry news
Indonesia game studio Anantarupa Studios was reported to have not been paying their employees since November 2024. More info and coverage by Vice here, and NMIA Gaming here.
MDEC announces the Digital Games Testbed Programme (DGTP) providing up to 700k MYR worth of incentives to empower Malaysia-based studios to grow and diversify their games portfolio.
The Philippines’ Department of Trade and Industry hosted the Young Creatives Challenge Season 2, which featured 10 winners in the game development industry. The Top 3 winners were Sweet Banana’s RiBeat!, Team Soleil’s Dogwood, and Alex Valdez’s PP Invasion.
Features of the month
Support VirtualSEA (by VirtualSEA)
2025 is VirtualSEA’s 9th year of covering Southeast Asian games and game development. Through the years of free games journalism, cataloguing and event coverage, consider supporting this passion project through Ko-fi and help keep up with admin costs to keep the site running!
The Hungry Ghost (Steam) Festival (by SEAGamethetic)
On 4th May 2025, SEAGamethetic (Zahid Riefqi) announced The Hungry Ghost Festival on Twitter and Bluesky. This festival is the successor to Ghost of The SEA Showcase and will be a special event to celebrate horror games, not just from Southeast Asia, but from all over the world.
The Hungry Ghost Festival is open for submissions until July 5, 2025 for game submissions. The Hungry Ghost Festival will be a Steam festival.
Game developers and publishers can submit their game below:
To commemorate this festival, content creators including horror enthusiasts and vtubers can participate in the festival by join the content creator program below:
Neko Odyssey Market Analysis (by Jirakorn Tisdeeruk, and translated by SEAGamethetic)
Secret Character, the creators of Neko Odyssey shared a deep dive on the game’s development, from the time and budget investment, to wishlist/price actions, and analysis on the game’s launch, etc.
For brevity please read the full deep dive on SEAGameathetic’s site here.
Funguys Swarm (by Stairway Games)
Eyo SEA Game fans!
We at Stairway Games just announced our new game Funguys Swarm — a goofy, chaotic, and cute cartoony survivor bullet hell! Our small but mighty team has been having an absolute blast working on it.
Three exciting things to share:
1. The demo is OUT NOW on Steam
2. We’re on Epic Game Store and you can wishlist us there
Jump into the swarm and fight off fiery veggies, fruits, and legumes. Level up, unlock fun and powerful skills, survive the swarm and face off against Appletini or die trying, and grow stronger in the Sanctuary!
Drop your feedback on the demo page or join the convo on Discord. And follow our socials you can find @funguys_swarm on X/Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, Bluesky, so you don’t miss out on Funguys news.
Hope to see you all there!
Please help share the newsletter: If you found the content in this issue valuable, please help share the newsletter to more folks in the SEA game dev community (and beyond).
We’re always on the lookout for contributions to the Features of the Month section. Apply here.
The SEA Game Dev Collective (and Digest Editorial team) are: