French indie game studio Guard Crush Games joins us to talk about their 2025 rogue 'em up Absolum which is nominated for Best Indie Game at the Game Awards this week. We speak to Montréal-based devs Cyrille, Léo and Bo about the studio's history and process, working on beat 'em ups using your own engine, getting nominated for Best Indie along with games like Hades II and Silksong as well as more questions about their work (some from our Discord).

Solo indie dev expert and longtime friend-of-the-site Devon Wiersma joins us to talk their latest release Centauri Dark, working across AAA, mid-sized and solo indie dev and how to fix this goshdarn industry.

This week we're joined by David Boguslavsky, Brand & Community Manager at Quiver Games, a "one stop solution to connect with other developers, build up a portfolio, and join people together into dream game dev teams to make amazing games." He tells us about their upcoming Games Incubator (Deadline June 14!) and then joins us for the regular pod to discuss local Vancouver studio Relic Entertainment's turbulent last few years, IGN Entertainment buying everything and the rest of our usual show.

Steve is AFK playing FFVII Rebirth with his newborn son on his lap (enjoy it while it lasts). So longtime friend of the site and former colleague/fellow Joydrop Unionizer Eric Beer joins Stephan to breakdown the month's Canadian gaming news, chat about upcoming events like EGLX (which Eric's attending) and chat a bit about Hades II. Check it a listen.

Steve and Stephan break down Baldur Gate 3's unprecedented success and the knock on effects it'll have on the industry and how we make games moving forward. We also speak to Ontario-based indie game devs Twinolli about their upcoming action-puzzler Highlighters which just got a (Dad Deck-verified) Steam demo!

Today we have another interview for you all- this time with longtime Canadian Game Devs discord user, Québéc-based, award-winning indie game developer: Dragon Slumber.

Steve has attained the Sega Saturn (thank you Justin) and he's getting INTO it. Cococucumber co. celebrates a big indie milestone and we get into all the big game award wins this past month and does unionizing even work anymore?! Dethrone Overwatch, Establish Democracy!

As we age and come to grips with our shifting priorities the things we get from our games also change- for Steve, he cries at Dad-stuff and is even more irritated by ideological blabbermouths. For Stephan, a dumb video game character saying "i love you" makes you cry and you can only QA test games now. These minds also discuss the latest Canadian gaming news, events and wishlist some sick-looking neon bright light games (and Goeland- what a good name).

We reveal the winners and runner-ups for our '23 Community Awards, go over some exciting Toronto indie game dev news and cap off with a long conversation about good (?!) microtransactions and lax technical standards in recent AAA games- and why Spider-Man 2 didn't give us the immediate fatigue Ragnarok did.

This week thousands more game developers join Stephan in the "terminated by evil, stupid people" camp as layoffs hit tons of studios all over Canada and the world. We discuss Sonic as well. Sonic supports Unionizing your Workplace!