Hello Indie Game Fan Reader!

Netflix has shut down Night School Studio, the team behind Oxenfree (its sequel and Afterparty), and just six weeks ago, Netflix was calling their newest game (Unhinged, streamable on Netflix only) as one of its most successful debuts.

Night School was Netflix's first studio acquisition, bought back in 2021 when the plan was to build a real games arm. They shipped Oxenfree II under Netflix, but as the priorities of the parent company changed with the tide, so did the fate of the studio.

Of note is that unlike Spry Fox (Alphabear, Cozy Grove) which bought themselves back, this studio was shuttered, which leads me to believe that Night School does not regain the rights to their IP.

That being said, I'm sure the owners of Night School would be just fine, given the acquisition deal and the fact that their games did sell prior to that, so we have to see is they are going to take another swing or call it quits.

So here's a question I'm chewing on: if you ran a small studio and a platform offered to buy you tomorrow, would you take the money? (you can reply directly to this email)

Get the list of 100 upcoming pixel art indie games.

PS: I've been sick as a dog this week which explains the lack of content. STILL not well, fighting a really stubborn bug, but I'll be back.

​Upcoming Games of 2026

Indie games of interest

1. ​Isles of Innsmouth - A minimalist city builder with Lovecraftian horror. No economy and no resources to juggle, just place buildings from the cards you're dealt, find the synergies between them, and appease Elder Gods who reward you with new islands, so think ISLANDERS but less chill and you get the idea.
2. ​Hordeguard: Winds of the North - Viking tower defence where you're not just building defenses but get into the thick of the action yourself! Raise fortifications between waves, leave the village to battle roaming enemies for loot, then fight alongside your own defences when the horde breaks through. Playtest is live, and they also announced that they signed with Daedalic.
3. ​Waste The Fallen - Cosmic horror extraction FPS for up to three players. The deeper you push the better the loot and the more horrible the things guarding it gets.
4. ​NEO BERLIN 2087 - Cyberpunk detective RPG where you relive the last moments of victims to reconstruct what happened. Play it stealthy or loud. Definitely some Deus Ex vibes.
5. ​Moomin: Midsummer Madness - Moomin video games continue to chug along with this Point-and-click adventure game looking stunning as well.
6. ​The Watcher - Set up surveillance on the windows across the street, intercept conversations, clean up the audio and pin it all to an evidence board. Then choose what goes in your report and what you bury, and ultimately asks the question, Who watches the Watcher?
7. ​10 Million Pixels - Shoot balls to mine pixels, spend the pixels to shoot more balls and hunt for the one golden pixel out of ten million in this incremental title.

​God Tier Indie Games​

My videos this week

1. ​Indie Gaming This Week: 10 – 16 August 2026 - The weekly roundup.

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News & Articles

1. ​Twitch is training Amazon's AI on your streams by default - Streams, chat, VODs, clips, everything. Their own CPO on why it isn't opt-in: "If it's opt-in, nobody would opt in. That's the honest answer." - Gross
2. ​Saber quietly added an AI disclosure after publicly fighting the writer who said she was replaced by ChatGPT - The disclosure on the store page now admits AI voices, AI localisation, AI-generated missions and AI music. The CEO's https://af.gog.com/en/game/soma?as=1734408664​response is unhinged and has to be seen for yourself.
3. ​Supermassive begins its third round of layoffs in three years, up to 75 jobs at risk - Oof
4. ​Ron Gilbert funded Thimbleweed Park 2 with one rich fan instead of a publisher - Seems nice.
5. ​Kinetic Games turns Phasmophobia money into a publishing label - 27 million copies sold, now funding five indie projects because the founder wanted to give people the support he didn't have. Same deal as Innersloth's Outersloth.
6. ​gamescom's dev survey: discoverability is the problem, transparent algorithms are the ask - 32% want platforms to be open about how their algorithms work. 37% say smaller teams are the biggest opportunity ahead.
7. ​Anti-AI clauses are now "just boilerplate" in game contracts - A games lawyer says every client wants one now, and she'd push for one if a publisher left it out.
8. ​Stop Killing Games joins a Dutch class action against the PlayStation Store - The argument sharpened once Sony confirmed it's ending physical discs in 2028, removing the last price competition.

Indie Game of the Week

​SOMA - Explore a flooded undersea research station with no weapons at all, reading terminals and rerouting power to open the way forward, asking a genuinely upsetting question about what you are and then refuses to let you off the hook. Grab it at 70% off!

Do you have any feedback or comments? You can reply directly to this email and I'll see it! Let me know your thoughts on the news and games above, as well an anything you would like to see!

Poll!

My name is Clement and I love indie games! As such, I make videos on indie games big and small, highlighting my favorites & supporting developers so that they can make more cool stuff.

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