我们最喜欢的 PAX Aus 2026 独立游戏，你现在就应该加入愿望单

Another year of PAX Aus can only mean one thing—there are indies to wishlist.

I’ll preach it until I’m blue in the face, but it’s so important to signal boost and show love to the games that stand out to you, and something as easy as a wishlist can help these games get the exposure they need to be the next big indie success story.

As a team, our tastes vary, and the PAX Rising show floor caters to nearly every interest. It’s a melting pot of talent and feel-good stories, such as Key Fairy, which has gone from its unassuming booth on the floor a couple of years back to being selected as one of Superloop’s Indie Showcase winners.

Here are all of the PAX Aus indies that caught our eye in 2026.

A Real Life Party

“In what was perhaps the most relatable game of PAX, A Real Life Party is almost like an interactive episode of Peep Show where the player character arrives at a party ahead of his friend and is forced to mingle with people he doesn’t know. 

It’s uncomfortable, it’s cringe, and it’s wittily funny. The final product is expected to run for all of half an hour, so it’s likely to make for a fun arvo.” BG 

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

Cozy Game Restoration

“I could have looked over this game’s fake send-up cartridges and discs all day, trying to work out what each one is in reference to, but the game itself also seems like such a relaxing time. 

Taking brushes, lights, and other careful tools to discoloured and dirty cartridges to restore them to their original lustre is half of the battle; there’s also a cool collecting side to the game that’ll scratch the itch of those who love a full shelf of games—an ode to physical media as it nears its deathbed.” BG

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

Plonk 4D

“As one of the few—if not the only—VR games at PAX, Plonk stood out as a charming jigsaw puzzle where time, along with your control over it, is your biggest ally in “plonking” together a series of elaborate 4D puzzles. 

There’s nothing I love more than having the wrong handle on an item in VR only to toss it into the air, have it spin in a perfectly weighted spiral, and land in my hand as needed. Plonk delivers that experience while putting together these cute, clay arrangements.” BG

“Plonk’s premise is simple: reassemble a moving puzzle in augmented reality. While a simple concept, and carrying inspirations from other first-in-class VR puzzlers, Plonk 4D has its own distinct flavour. Each puzzle is a moving piece of art, and to bring them back together, you’ll need to ensure they’re in the right part of the timeline. To do this, you’ll need to pause, rewind, and fast-forward time.

This fundamentally changes the way you interact with each piece of a puzzle before trying to match them together. The art style is beautiful, harkening back to the days when I’d fuse bits of Play-Doh to make something that I’d think was spectacular, while the puzzles themselves are wonderfully whimsical. Before everything becomes a jumbled mess, you initially see the puzzle in its complete form. This gives a clear sense of what goes where, but things get complicated when it all separates.” TB

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

The Troll & The Witch’s House

“Fans of Monkey Island and other point-and-click games of that ilk have a lot to be excited about with The Troll & The Witch’s House. Inspired by tales of folklore, the game is set in a strange little house full of mysteries to uncover. 

The demo I got to play had me awaken as the titular troll in a butler’s pantry, armed with a singular idea: brew a cup of tea that might incapacitate the witch and pave the way for a daring escape. It’s got a lot of charm, driven by its stunning hand animation.” BG

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

Pie In The Sky

“Only an Aussie could take the trauma of being swooped by a magpie and turn it into a game. At least you’re the one swooping here. Fly around, cause havoc, steal food, and terrify humans as you take the reins of Australia’s most vicious bird.

Think Untitled Goose Game mixed with Goat Simulator. Turn the tables and become the bird that everyone fears come springtime. Love it or hate it, it really is black and white.” MZ

Click here to wishlist or buy the game on Steam.

One Pop Planet

“This moreish matching puzzle game might be the most fun I had on the PAX Rising floor. It’s a game played with just one button as you quest to release coloured pixel cubes from four directions to create matches that’ll feed the hungry planet in the middle. 

If a cube slips through and collides with the opposite wall, it causes damage to the planet instead. It’s a simple premise, but the execution is flawless, and the game only gets harder the longer you last as weather or cosmic phenomena blow in to wreck your day.” BG

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

Bumper Bout

“Although I got my arse beat handily, Bumper Bout is a tremendously fun riff on pinball, managing to transform it into a PVP delight where balls—hell, even multi-balls—fly back and forth. 

There’s some clever stage design; a few I saw even had mechanics unique to them. There’s an outer space one where balls can get caught in a planet’s orbit and dragged off track, making for an extremely unpredictable brand of pinball.” BG

“I love a good game of pinball, so you can only imagine my joy when I came across Bumper Bout on the show floor. While I didn’t get too much time with it, I really enjoyed duking it out against my mate and watching as the board became more and more chaotic.

There’s a unique twist on pinball here, and the game’s visual style, alongside the pure chaos of multiple balls pinging about at a time, was a particular highlight. Needless to say, I won our game by a landslide. For those who like a fun, twisted spin on an arcade classic, definitely keep an eye out as Bumper Bout launches later this month.” TB

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam.

Signs of Danger

“A little bit Helldivers, a little bit Risk of Rain, and a whole lot of fun. This co-op physics roguelike brings fully destructible terrain and effects that will have you killing friends and foes alike, whether by accident or on purpose. Watching people accidentally crush themselves over and over in the tutorial was only the start of a hilarious journey.” MZ

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam.

Cloudlings

“It takes a village to raise an… island? Floating through the sky, collecting drifting islands and growing your tribe, Cloudlings is a colony sim that allows you to take things at your own pace.

Manage your resources, explore the mysterious world in the sky, and grow your colony bit by bit. Encounter friends and enemies alike as you explore the mysteries that hide beyond the clouds, growing your island and expanding your curiosity as you fly through the skies.” MZ

Click here to wishlist the game, or join the playtest, on Steam.

The Last Exterminator

“Enormous Duke Nukem 3D energy from this one, from the key art right through to the retro boomer shooter stylings of the game. As a down-on-her-luck bug exterminator, it feels as though all of Kira’s Christmases have come at once as the city falls victim to a cockroach invasion. 

The game has all of the devastating weapons you’d hope for from a game like this, including a genre staple shotgun to reduce the “gruntroaches” to gibs. It really is a love letter to the FPS games so many of us were raised on.” BG

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

Overflow

“Overflow came as such a surprise to me. As someone who’s a fan of slow-burn, atmospheric horror, like the sorely underrated Paratopic, I feel like it hits on a lot of that game’s strengths. Overflow sees you descending into a sprawling stormwater drain in search of a missing friend, but it’s the game’s ability to reward exploration with great environmental storytelling that makes it a grower.  

Similar to Paratopic, the game utilises a cool retro aesthetic, making use of low-polygonal models to emulate the glory days of the original PlayStation—it’s such a boon for the game’s unsettling vibe.” BG

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

Footy Bash

“There’s room enough in this world for all of the Aussie Rules football games, especially when it comes to indies. But this isn’t your average footy game. In a 2.5D world, you’ll violently clobber opponents as you charge your way through packs, kicking into the forward line to take the most massive speckys that you can.

Barry Hall, eat your heart out, this is where the real footy is at.” MZ

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

Unspoken: A Linguistic Adventure

“This game made me feel dumber than any other on the PAX Aus show floor. Similar to No Man’s Sky and how it treated curiosity and discovery through alien texts and language, Unspoken crash-lands you on a planet and expects you to, through context clues, work out the planet’s language.

This might come in the form of gesture, demeanour, or scrawlings in the dirt. Every micro-attempt to communicate might be the next key to helping parse through and unlock an open dialogue which, in turn, might get you home.” BG

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

Rain98

“Full disclosure: I didn’t find the time to sit down with this one, but I’m including it based on vibes alone. Nothing screams my cup of tea more than a turn-of-the-millennium Tokyo setting, chill lo-fi tunes and all, for a psycho-thriller horror game.” BG

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

Multi-Merge Mayhem

“I love a bit of chaos in my multiplayer games, and Multi-Merge Mayhem certainly scratches that itch. The game essentially merges Super Smash Bros. with WarioWare, pitting up to eight players against each other across fifteen rounds of mini-game-fuelled chaos. Every round has some kind of stipulation, with the ultimate goal of surviving.

There’s a barrage of obstacles that you’ve got to deal with, whether that’s a homing missile, lasers, or clouds that push you into the stratosphere, all while you try to avoid other players from clobbering you off the stage. It comes together to form a whimsical, oftentimes hilarious bout of mayhem.” TB

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam.

LOVE X LOVE

“Lo-fi tunes, a neon-soaked noir city, classic cars, and strange dreams. Love X Love is something beyond a game – it’s a vibe, holding my attention the entire time without distraction. Shifting between reality and a mystic dream world, you play a driver who hops from job to job in a gig economy, meeting interesting and strange characters along the way. Solve puzzles, drive and complete gigs, and tune your dreams to change and save the world. It’s almost hard to put into words how much I want this game to come out.” MZ

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

(I couldn’t find a trailer on YouTube, so enjoy a track from the game’s aforementioned vibey soundtrack.)

Down Under Destruction

“Some games struggle to nail the ‘Straya aesthetic, but Down Under Destruction is not one of them. Step into Dave-o the bricklayer’s shoes as he and his demonic brick accomplices/weapons try to take down the evil OzTron corporation. Fight off hordes of mind-controlled tradies through suburban Australia, including the local servo, ‘Dunning’s Warehouse’, construction sites, and more as you set out to save the world.

Just make sure you log your overtime and get your RDOs!” MZ

Click here to wishlist the game on Steam. 

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