Adelaide, and South Australia more broadly, has long seemed overlooked amidst the east coast bias of Australian discourse, and game development is no exception. The third annual South Australian Games Exhibition (SAGE), however, suggests this may be a mistake. Last Friday and Saturday, from the 7th to the 8th of February, saw SAGE 2025, with the support of Big Ant Studios and the South Australia Film Corporation (SAFC), take place at Adelaide Studios. Beginning in 2023, and this year hosting a selection of 37 games and 10 industry panels, the free exhibition has steadily scaled up into an impressive showcase that makes a case for being a key part of the Australian game sector’s calendar.
I attended SAGE on Saturday after spending the previous week at the annual Digital Games Research Association Australia (DiGRAA) Conference (very conveniently they overlapped this year). Arriving shortly after opening at 10am, I found the show floor already bustling, with families and children especially manically darting from one game showcase to the next. I was told that before the event opened there was already a line hundreds deep waiting to get in – a first for the exhibition, and a sure sign of the community appeal of free and all-ages events.
This is reflected in the attendee numbers, too. Over 3,000 people booked to attend on Saturday, more than the entirety of SAGE 2024. The exhibition also took over SAFC’s screening theatre for the first time to host more panels, only to have people regularly spilling into the aisles. It appears the larger industry is taking note, too – several developers mentioned to me that game publishers like Apple and Epic had a quiet but notable presence on the show floor.
Not only is SAGE growing in scale, but so too is the South Australian games industry. While there, I chatted with current SAFC Game Development Executive and SAGE Jury Chair James O’Connor. This was his first time running SAGE after taking over from Webb and when I asked him about the current state of South Australian games, he said the following:
“If you want to explain the [South Australia games] sector, it is easy to point to a handful of big studios and games – we made Hollow Knight and that’s a big deal, we have Mighty Kingdom, we have Tantalus South, we have Big Ant and those are all wonderful and all part of the structure and I love all of them. I came into this role nine months ago, and I came in thinking I knew a lot about the local development scene and I knew what was happening, who was in it and what games they were making. I’ve spent just the last nine months realising I knew just a fraction of it and that actually the [South Australia games] scene is so much broader and wider and more interesting than I ever realised.”
“…the [South Australia games] scene is so much broader and wider and more interesting than I ever realised.” – James O’Connor
O’Connor also said, “It’s a really varied scene; if you go out and look at the games out there, there is not a hegemony, you know, there is a lot of different genres being represented, a lot of different styles, different ages, different genders, different ethnicities.” He particularly emphasised the role community has played in fostering local talent, mentioning how open and supportive it was of neurodiversity and queer creators.
This supportive and communal atmosphere was also readily apparent on the show floor. I heard many attendees and exhibitors comparing the experience to PAX, but I think that undersells the more positive experience of roaming the exhibition. Whereas PAX’s show floor is known for roiling crowds, booming music and capital G ‘Gamer’ culture, SAGE, while still busy, had a much more intimate and relaxed feel. Not only was the space itself more dominated by the steady murmur of conversation than booming dubstep (thank the gods), but I also saw developers connecting over their work and swapping notes about their development processes.
This facilitated an environment that led me to have a multitude of warm, lengthy and personable chats with developers. While a lot of this happens at other exhibitions like PAX certainly, the less sensory overwhelming environment created a much nicer and more relaxed atmosphere than anything I had experienced at PAX, without compromising on the crowd. Based on my personal observations, I would wager this, alongside the free entry, is what led to children and their slightly frazzled parents seemingly making up a strong proportion of attendees.
Speaking on Saturday afternoon as to the success of SAGE up to that point, O’Connor said he had been blown away by the response this year. “I knew things were on track to be good … [but] we have had huge numbers come through the door, we’ve had an incredible response to the games. I was just on a panel where people were standing in the aisles… I could not be happier with how things have gone.”
Spotlighting Games
It also wouldn’t be a games exhibition report without foregrounding some of the games themselves. SAGE 2025 boasted 37 locally made games, including 14 new game studios showcasing at the exhibition for the first time. Many of these games can be found on SAGE’s Steam page, but here I also want to talk about a few games that I had a chance to play and chat with the developers about.
I caveat this list with the concession that I obviously was unable to play everything and prioritised titles that I hadn’t yet had a chance to check out previously at PAX. Games that I had previously demoed and heartily endorse include Kādomon: Hyper Auto Battlers, rogue-lite deck builder Fox and Shadow and the ever-adorable axolotl starring dungeon crawler Dungeons and Dining Tables.
Pro Jank Footy by Powerbomb Games (Winner of SAGE Best in Exhibition)
It’s worth starting with the winner of the SAGE award for Best in Exhibition: Pro Jank Footy. Imagine the vibe of a retro arcade sports game ala NBA Jam applied to Aussie Rules Footy and you’re not far off. The game was created by developer duo David Ashby and Dario Russo, also known for cult TV series Danger 5, in a remarkable four-month period with support from Screen Australia’s Emerging Gamemaker Fund. SAGE 2025 was actually the first time ever Pro Jank Footy has been shown to the public, and it received an overwhelmingly positive response.
The game stands in stark contrast with the simulation focus of the AFL Evolution series through a range of chaotic and arcadey mechanics. Every time a player scores a goal, the other player gets to choose from three extremely silly power-ups, ranging from doubling the size of the players, turning everyone into footballs and even adding a third team into the game to cause even more chaos. This is all made even better with sports commentary provided by Aunty Donna’s Broden Kelly (perfect choice in my opinion). The developers told me the next steps for Pro Jank Footy include other exhibitions and maybe even an arcade cabinet in Melbourne, where I suspect it would be a monstrous hit.
CUBE by The RnD Department (Winner of SAGE Elevate Award)
The other game to win a prize at SAGE was CUBE, a minimalist puzzle platformer where the player guides a lone cube that steadily increases in size while navigating an abstract landscape. CUBE was developed by duo Daniel D’Cruz and Rupert (Ru) McPharlin and won the SAGE 2025 Elevate Award. Given its all-ages accessibility, families appeared to gravitate towards CUBE on the show floor, and while chatting to the developers I saw a wide range of kids intuitively pick up the game’s mechanics and have a great time messing around in the physics of the short vertical slice.
With shades of Monument Valley, Fez and other award-winning Australian games like LVL², CUBE has a distinctive pixel art style, and according to the developers was inspired by a design and personal philosophy around perspective and being able to take stock of your immediate surroundings. I was told they were targeting a full release in late 2025 and currently considering platforms to launch on. It is also worth noting that they had the savviest marketing device of all the gaming booths I checked out at SAGE in the form of painted blue cubes with an embedded RFID that links to their Linktree. The demo is also currently available on their itch.io page.
The Troll and the Witch’s House by Little Bandit
The Troll and the Witch’s House is a point-and-click adventure game starring a young troll (with abnormally large feet) trapped in a Witch’s house. With support from Screen Australia’s Emerging Gamemakers Fund, the game is being developed entirely by solo developer Ditte Wad Andersen. Ditte is fairly new to games, but boasts an impressive background in design and animation, and that expertise really shows in Witch’s House’s biggest asset, its art direction. Ditte told me that she drew inspiration from classic Cartoon Network shows like The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Courage the Cowardly Dog, and those inspirations are immediately apparent in its lush, hand-drawn and expressive aesthetic. Ditte intends to show the game off at other exhibitions like PAX and SXSW in the future where I suspect it will draw enormous positive attention.
Yakshini Lokam by Orlando Mee
Another outstanding and creative endeavour from a solo developer was Yakshini Lokam. Orlando Mee is a multimedia artist and indie game developer working on Nharangga land in regional South Australia and is developing Yakshini also with the support of Screen Australia’s Emerging Gamemakers Fund.
It follows an Indian family who gets Jumanjied (the exact verb that was used) into a board game and must contend with various traditional Indian games to escape. The game takes major inspiration from Game Boy titles like Earthbound and posits an alternate history where India, as well as America and Japan, was developing video games in the late 1990s. The game has a beautiful pixel-art style and I was even told that Orlando was planning a physical cartridge release (yes please).
Anvilheart by Towerpoint Games
I’m sure every child today secretly dreams of being a blacksmith, a dream that can now be realised virtually in Towerpoint Game’s upcoming debut title Anvilheart. Mixing visual novel-style storytelling with blacksmithing management mechanics, the player takes on the role of a young blacksmith in a small fantasy town who is learning their trade and navigating their relationships with various customers.
While the game looked to still be in its earlier stages of development, the premise alone has me intrigued about the final release (blacksmithing isn’t a particularly crowded game genre hey).
Makers Empire by Makers Empire
For something slightly different on the show floor you had Makers Empire. As much an educational tool as a game, Makers Empire is a suite of software to help introduce young children to 3D modelling and game design. Beginning in 2013, Makers Empire is now hosted in over 1200 schools, mostly in Australia, and boasts 50,000 new designs being made by students a day.
The idea of educational software to help introduce students to contemporary creative tools is an admirable and exciting one that I saw many children responding to on the show floor. Makers Empire also reportedly has plans to start targeting older demographics alongside primary school children.
Blood Reaver by Hell Byte Studios
Blood Reaver feels like a spiritual successor to all the late-night game sessions I had at a friend’s place growing up where we would play Call of Duty’s zombie mode until our eyes started to bleed. One of a handful of more mature games on the floor, Blood Reaver is the debut title of Adelaide studio Hell Byte and is a round-based arena FPS but with a dark fantasy sheen.
Drawing inspiration from a wellspring of exciting sources like Dishonored, Bloodborne, Bioshock and popular recent boomer shooters, it sees the player defending themselves from an onslaught of demons while accumulating points and weapons and navigating increasingly difficult waves of enemies. The developers emphasised to me a focus on real-time on-the-fly decisions and stress. A demo is currently available for download on Steam.
This list is only a small excerpt of what was showcased at SAGE 2025. For more, check out the list of exhibitors on SAGE’s website, as well as their Steam page.
About the Author
Cass Barkman
she/they
Cass is a lecturer in Media and Communications at The University of Melbourne with a personal/academic love for experimental narrative videogames, complex cinema and having a little nap.
