Last week, a few members of the GSC team went to New Game Plus, a two-day event at the London Games Festival that highlights indie games and developers from around the world.
This year, there were over 90 games to get hands-on experience with, from recent to future releases, all within Exhibition White City in the heart of London. So we decided to share our favourites from New Game Plus, giving you all a bunch of new games to check out and get excited for!
Be sure to watch/listen to this week’s episode of the GSC Weekly News Podcast to get our immediate impressions from New Game Plus!
Harry’s Picks
Deaths Of Peck
The first game from BAFTA-nominated animation studio, The Line, Deaths Of Peck is a humorous 2D platformer where you take control of the titular Peck, a little goblin with the mysterious ability to survive and come back to life after meeting a variety of grisly ends. Using his strange blessing/curse, Peck must save the rest of his non-magical goblin brethren from their own horrifying fates, like being eaten by giant demons!
Gameplay consists of navigating levels to free batches of goblins from their cages, using a variety of environmental hazards to unlock unique movement options to progress and reach hidden areas. The demo was set in a larger-than-life kitchen, with giant knives to slice Peck in half, giving him a side-splitting double-jump, slamming mallets to crush him to a bloody pulp capable of clinging onto nailheads and sliding across wires, and gas-burning stoves that burn the little goblin as he runs at blistering speed through breakable obstacles.
After any one of these unfortunate mishaps, Peck can be restored with a simple pull of the right trigger, or by touching a bushel of blue mushrooms, some of which grow in places meant to hinder more than help. It all comes together for fun and, on occasion, challenging platforming sequences, chaining together several double-jumps by quickly reuniting Peck’s two halves before slicing him in twain yet again. I enjoyed it so much that I went back a second time to free all 100 goblins in the first level, with a Peck body count of 78!
With The Line team’s background in animation, working with the likes of Blizzard and Riot Games on their 2D animated trailers, it’s no surprise that Deaths of Peck’s art style works perfectly for the game’s Rayman-inspired gameplay, with just a hint of Super Meat Boy for good (macabre) measure. The onscreen action is accompanied by a cartoonish yet visceral mixture of smashes, slices, and roars of flame, the type that would have Tom & Jerry wincing. Given that the demo I played was made in only three months, and with the developers promising a lot more ways that Peck will perish (which you can check out over on their official Instagram), Deaths of Peck has quickly become one of my most anticipated releases.
Deaths of Peck currently has no release date and is coming to PC.
The Florist
Ever since it was first revealed back in October 2025, I have been itching to get my hands on The Florist, the Resident Evil-inspired horror game that swaps out shambling zombies for a deadly overabundance of flora.
Developed by New Zealand-based Unclear Games, you step into the shoes of Jessica Park, the eponymous florist who finds herself trapped in the lakeside town of Joycliffe during a routine flower arrangement delivery. The town is quickly overwhelmed by a mysterious flower-based affliction that kills and twists many of its victims into unsettling creatures, and Jessica seems to be the sole survivor.
The Florist uses tank-style movement controls and fixed camera angles like the horror games of yore, increasing the unsettling and sometimes claustrophobic atmosphere of the environments, with limited visibility and space to move elevating the tension even further. A PR rep for Unclear Games informed me that they chose not to go with the iconic inventory management system, instead letting players pick up anything and everything and allowing them to spend more time experiencing Joycliffe instead of getting bogged down in menus.
It’s a good thing too, because The Florist looks fantastic in Unreal Engine 5, with deep shadows, immersive particle effects, and a rich colour palette that brings every petal and fibre of the game’s realistic art style to life. Don’t let this strangely beautiful place fool you; it’s rife with puzzles to test you and monsters to fight or flee from, so stay alert in this creepy, changing world as you try to escape a most unnatural end.
The Florist is scheduled to release in 2026 across PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch & Switch 2.
Outclaw
If you’re looking for a game that lets you command a horde of minions to do your bidding, like the Overlord series was so well known for, then I suggest you keep an eye on Outclaw. Developed by UK-based indie studio Moss Monkey, Outclaw is a 3rd-person platformer that has you collecting little creatures called Shades as you guide the five-eyed cat Comet through a strange world.
Your Shades can assist you in several ways across a dozen levels with their own unique enemies and boss encounters, from turning into certain objects that help you traverse the level, to charging in to fight your foes on your behalf or by your side. I quickly got to grips with Outclaw’s intuitive controls, using the right trigger to mark where I wanted my Shades to go or what to do, and calling them back to me using the left trigger. Your followers can be defeated, but are revived using another of Comet’s abilities that creates a healing area-of-effect around the cat, or by reaching one of the many checkpoints spread throughout the level.
Alongside the combat and puzzles, Outclaw is planned to have an abundance of goodies to find and collect, including 100s of hats for your Shades. During my time with the demo, I found a few well-hidden keychains, but didn’t see what they unlocked, nor the base you can decorate that is listed among Outclaw’s key features. But between my hands-on experience and time chatting with the game’s producer, I’ve seen and heard enough to know that Outclaw is something I’ll really enjoy,
Outclaw is scheduled to release in 2026 on PC.
Hoard’s LLC: Limited Labyrinth Corporation
I am a big puzzle game fan, and I love Dungeons & Dragons. So when I saw Hoard’s LLC, a witty rotating-tile puzzler that reimagines a classic fantasy dungeon as a red tape-laden corporation, crammed full of spike traps, cheesy corporate humor, and paperwork, so much paperwork!
Developed by Boston and Paris-based indie studio Cephalopod Ink, you follow Barry the minotaur as he winds his way through the many departments of his place of work, bumping into quirky coworkers and seeing that their company is exploiting them all, leading him on a path to unionise!
Levels involve rotating groups of four tiles either left or right to create a clear path through a top-down maze so that Barry can reach the exit, which wouldn’t be so hard if his workplace weren’t full of traps. Spike traps that switch on and off with each rotation, stone tiles that won’t be budged, and even more menacing machinations await our mild-mannered minotaur. The gameplay definitely got its hooks in me, as I retried each level until I completed them in as few moves as I could, earning all three stars before advancing. I made ample use of the game’s excellent quality-of-life options, such as the ability to undo or redo a move, fully reset the level with a single button press, and immediately restart a level after finishing it, with no load times.
While my stubbornness may have meant that I didn’t see as much of the visual novel element that is the other half of Hoard’s LLC, what I did see I thoroughly enjoyed, especially Barry’s first meeting with Franny, the chirpy, but clearly in need of rest, mimic chest, who quickly rushes off to cover someone else’s shift at the command of a voice over the intercom. What I played of Hoard’s LLC seemed like the enjoyable balance of creativity, comedy, and challenge, and I look forward to seeing Barry’s journey through to the end once the game releases.
Hoard’s LLC: Limited Labyrinth Corporation currently has no release date and is coming to PC.
V’s Picks
Case Solved: The London Files
Having a good look at the games attending New Game Plus this year, I was immediately excited for Case Solved: The London Files. I’m a sucker for a detective puzzler, and the almost sticker book style visuals looked fantastic.
Case Solved: The London Files uses a series of Zebra puzzles for each case. If you’re not familiar, a Zebra puzzle is a kind of logic puzzle where, by using a set of clues and the assumption that only one action or item belongs to each person, you can use a process of elimination to assign values to each person or object in a grid. It’s called a Zebra puzzle because the most famous one involves a Zebra, some colourful houses and a Norwegian.
In the demo at New Game Plus, I got to play through the first case, trying to figure out a murder at a music venue. In order to gather clues for your investigation grid, you click on the characters who’ll then mention an item somewhere in the scene. So it’s a little bit of a hidden object game to go along with the puzzling. There’s a generous hint system (you get a usable hint by finding the hidden cat in the level), which will fill in missing clues, and each character will follow up their item with a location if you click on them again.
Finding the clues isn’t the hard part. That comes with the puzzles themselves. Each case starts relatively easily with a few characters and one or two pieces of information to fill in, and builds from there to large grids of 5 or more characters with even more pieces of information to fill in for them. It’s a great intro to this type of puzzle, and by the end of the first case, you’ll be feeling pretty clever, I reckon. I certainly was, and I’m looking forward to the full release later this year.
Burdenfall
I would say that perhaps the genre of deck building is a little saturated. However, I keep playing them and loving them, so it would be a redundant statement. Burdenfall was one of the first games I spotted as we got into New Game Plus proper and I knew I needed to play it. Gorgeous pixel art, in a gloomy, desolate world with deep deck-building mechanics and a story about overcoming life’s struggles? And there’s a cute bunny?! Made just for me.
You start Burdenfall by meeting your adorable (if a little toothy) bunny friend in a dungeon at the bottom of a vast tower, looked over by a forever weeping god. This god contains all of the memories of every soul in the universe, and in order to grow, you must remember your life – the good and the bad. You’ll do this by traversing the tower, facing its inhabitants in card-based battles, facing your trauma and collecting your own tears along the way.
Unlike most deck building rogue likes, in Burdenfall you are actually playing your deck against the enemies. Each turn, you’ll see your hand and the cards your opponent intends to play, meaning you can choose to specifically counter their individual cards. Maybe they’re going to play a card that does damage; you can use your shield to mitigate the damage of that card. Or maybe they’re going to make you pull a Tear card next turn – use a card to try and remove that from their hand (or deck) to prevent it. I actually managed this in my run of the demo and may have gotten very excited.
Tears are cards stored in a separate deck that modify the conditions of a combat as a whole. You gain a new Tear whenever you lose a life (you have 7 to start with), so you’ll want to balance keeping combat short with stopping as much damage as possible. They can cause you to take damage whenever your bunny buddy eats, or allow the enemy to power up whenever you take a certain action. Ideally, you’ll want to keep the amount of tears in play low – but I’m sure as you get further in the game, there will be ways to use them to your advantage in some cases.
Your bunny sidekick isn’t just for show either. They eat morsels (based on recharge times) that change how you might play some hands, or even heal you – and they can transform into different forms that will also shape your run and the decisions you make on it.
It might sound like a lot of mechanics, but they fit together so well that I settled into a strategy very quickly in my time with the demo. Paired with the music, the art and the promise of a touching narrative about facing life in all of its forms, I absolutely cannot wait until full release.
Remote Control
I have no idea when I got really into typing games. Maybe it was Neopets flash games in the early 2000’s. Maybe it was finding Zork in CoD: Black Ops. All I know is that I love them, and Remote Control is shaping up to be an amazing one.
Set on a derelict spaceship called The Pelican, you are tasked with remotely controlling human “proxies” around the dank, fungi-filled corridors to find out exactly what the hell happened here. Much like the text adventures of old, you’ll need to pilot your human puppet through everything. Walk forward, turn right, inspect mushroom, eat the mushroom, next proxy. When talking to one of the developers of the two-person team at Canteen, they said the most fascinating thing about watching people play at the event was seeing exactly what they wrote in the text box. How did their brains work when trying to figure things out? What exactly would they put these people through in the name of progression?
That’s also a question Remote Control asks you. The proxies under your control are human beings, and The Pelican is a dangerous place. How much danger are you willing to put them in to get through an obstacle. I watched one bleed to death, another die to fire, one more to poison. Not as I was playing, but as other people were. Given a goal, we were all happy to send another proxy to it’s death to plow forward.
Style-wise, Remote Control is retro-futurism in all the best ways. The terminals could be lifted from an 80s film, and the graphics sit firmly in the low-poly horror of the PS1 era, a perfect combo for a tense but not too scary experience.
Adam’s Picks
Smash ‘N Grab
Wanna play as a well-dressed robot that is inexplicably tethered to a raccoon? Wanna smash buildings, guards and anything else you can find to steal the best loot you can? How about racing against the clock for the perfect score? Then boy, do we have a game for you!
Smash ‘N Grab is being developed by Belfast-based Slap Bang Digital. The game will be their first title as a studio, letting you play as Smash (the robot) and Grab (raccoon) as you carry out heists. Smash is out for justice, and Grab is chasing the wealth.
You control Smash with the left stick and throw Grab with the right stick (keyboard and mouse aren’t supported). The level that I played, and is available as a demo on Steam, has you smash walls, taking out enemies, nabbing diamonds and avoiding laser security. It’s fast-paced, and you’re rewarded for being quick, efficient, and also netting the most loot.
I had a lot of fun with the demo, and I suspect I’ll return to it to have another bash. The visuals are fantastic, inspired by animated cartoons like The Batman Animated Series and Samurai Jack; it really works well. The music is also notable, with a funky, jazzy brass band feel. Would thoroughly recommend giving it a go
Smash ‘N Grab is slated to release on PC, but currently does not have a release date.
Less Miserables
I’ve often said there aren’t enough games that are like musicals, South of Midnight feels like the closest I’ve seen for a while. I know I am getting hounded by Candy to try Stray Gods, though, which I will, but when I saw this at New Game Plus, I had to give it a go.
Less Miserables is a point and click adventure (ala Monkey Island) with a heavy amount of parody. Developers, College Fun Games describe the game as something that will “aim to do for Les Miserables who Life of Brian did to The Bible.” The story will be a parallel story of the source inspiration, but will include many jokes along the way.
You will play as Claude Van Claude, a criminal who has been in jail for 14 years for stealing a loaf of bread. Once released, he is out to find his daughter to save her from the bubbling revolution that is threatening to engulf the streets of Paris.
The game features hand-drawn art, live voice performances, as well as mysteries and puzzles. The game is aiming to release on iOS, PC and Switch in March 2027. You can currently back the game on Kickstarter as well as try out the demo on Steam.
Museful
What I love about going to events like New Game Plus is finding a game that grabs your attention just as you look around. Museful was one of those games.
Developed by Northampton’s Nostalgicat, you play as the super cute lizard, the Conductor, where you will explore hand-drawn environments that are missing their colour. You will work your way through this 2D metroidvania as you restore the colour to the world through the power of music.
You will unlock new abilities to colourize the world, fight enemies and find new ways to explore. Boasting tight platforming and controls, and based on what I played at New Game Plus, this is definitely one to keep your eye on.
Museful will release on PC. There is currently no release date.
Echobreaker
I know this game is going to bug me, in a good way. One where you just have to have another go because you think you can get a better score, or save a second or two by trying a specific move at a certain moment.
Echobreaker is an isometric precision platformer developed by Upstream Arcade. Your goal is to power through multiple levels, finding shortcuts, using power-ups, whilst taking out a set number of targets, as quickly as possible. You’ll play and play again to get the best time you can.
You play as a test subject to help evaluate an experimental device, high-powered by a new tech Temporal Echo Drive. You’re equipped to go at speed, but, of course, speed comes with a risk; you can even sacrifice your own health to build momentum
It is aiming to release on PC this year.
Mark’s Picks
Astro Burn
Arriving at the London Games Festival last year, I was blown away by a full remake of a childhood favourite schump, Platypus Reclayed, which we followed through to launch and praised highly in my review.
This year, the schmup of the show was certainly a 2D pixel shooter, Astro Burn. Normally, not a genre I venture heavily into as the difficulty can be overwhelming, but I enjoyed every moment of the first stage to the game. Heavily inspired by some of the genre classics, Astro Burn is colourful and trippy. Full of animals – particularly cats, per the game’s community request – and a whole array of weapons that light up the screen as you blast your way from left to right.
I played the game on hard difficulty, a step down from the top, and felt the challenge was balanced. There’s the fun ability to build up a power meter that, when full, allows you to trigger your Gigacat’s ability to obliterate everything on screen. A really good way to get out of jail free when the ante up.
One of the coolest aspects, though, is that the game is launching with a PC physical release. From what is designed to look like an SNES cartridge, pops out a USB with the game on. No DRM, no nonsense. The ability to lend a friend a PC game in 2026 is something that is so great to see.
We were lucky enough to have a full interview with the lead developer from Beyond the Pixels, Haz which you can watch above.
Astro Burn is launching into early access on Steam on April 27, 2026, and there is already a demo available.
Cohen 1939
As a proud Brummie (someone from the UK’s second city, Birmingham), it’s great to see the city continuing to enter the cultural zeitgeist. With God Save Birmingham, an anticipated medieval survival game already in development, developers are really starting to look at Birmingham as a location apt for a game setting.
Though perhaps what Birmingham is most famous for globally in the 21st century is the crime thriller, Peaky Blinders. The story of the Shelby brothers’ crime and vice in post-WWI Birmingham is adored around the world, and more continues to be made in the film / TV space.
One way of being inspired by the Peaky Blinders that I didn’t have in mind, however, was a Hotline Miami-like. Within a minute of playing the game, I’d asked the game representative if that’s the inspiration, and they were very proud to say that it indeed is.
With a 1939 stylized city and an arsenal that includes Tommy Guns and baseball bats to plough through enemies with, everything you liked about Hotline Miami is lifted and infused with a Peaky Blinders-like cast. One of the characters even looks suspiciously like Tommy Shelby himself. There is a full written story to the game here too.
It was janky, and the game’s Chinese > English localisation needs work, but being so early in development, I’m sure the developers will resolve these. There is a playtest available now on Steam. The developers are hoping to release the game within the next 18 months.
Rewilders: The Lost Spring
One of the greatest things about attending games events is that trying something new takes you out of your comfort zone. Within the virtual towers of Gamer Social Club, I have a reputation for being anti-roguelike.
Rewilders is a much lighter and more approachable roguelike, with the ability to retain more of your items between runs. The visually cosy game also includes Metroidvania elements and an impactful story about the preservation of biodiversity around the world.
The game has very light Souls-inspired combat with light and heavy attacks, alongside a satisfying parry and dodge roll. But where the gameplay shines is the use of the Hantu creatures, which you recruit and deploy. Being able to carry up to four Hantu means you can customise your build to suit your play style.
We were very lucky to have the opportunity to exclusively interview the CEO of Herobeat Studios to talk about the game, alongside getting some enjoyable hands-on time.
Rewilders is releasing later this year on Steam Early Access. The third playtest is now live on Steam. An Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 release are also planned, with the game getting an Xbox playtest soon.
Those are our picks from New Game Plus at the London Games Festival 2026! Do any of them interest you? Let us know in the comments below, and join the Gamer Social Club Discord to chat about your favourite games, play in community game nights, take part in giveaways, and more!
