2025 Toronto Games Week Showcase Participants
Akiiwan
Little Buffalo Studios
A chill survival game, with a talking campfire. Akiiwan re-imagines the genre to focus on what is really means to live off the land, with a talking fire that has been listening to people speak around it for generations, and is now ready to speak. Led by an Indigenous team that includes Red River Metis, Anishinaabe, Cree and Mohawk contributors, Akiiwan is begining open beta in July 2025: please visit the steam page and request to join a playtest.
Cat Colony Crisis
Devil's Cider Games
WINNER of Jamming the Curve 2020 - Character Management category.
WINNER of the LabX Game Development Grant - Jamming the Curve 2020
You are tasked with helping a colony ship full of space-faring cats deal with a mysterious disease outbreak! Will you act fast and stop the spread of this disease or will it spread unchecked and ravage your Cat Colony.
Echo Commander
Brightmir AI
Echo Commander re-imagines Battleship for blind, low-vision, and sighted players alike. Audio cues let non-sighted commanders hunt ships by sound, while high-contrast visuals keep sighted tacticians engaged. The browser title runs anywhere from 15-year-old phones to PlayStation browsers, no installs, just play!
Launched Feb 2025, it has 3000+ players, 800+ MAU, 25-min sessions, and 30% month-one retention. Weekly, community-driven patches keep the design both accessible and strategically deep.
Here I Am
Leon
Here I Am ... is a poem on the run from a crossroads of intersections ...is a map of the problem about arriving where you are ...is a countdown that never ends seemingly, until suddenly it does ...is a game of taking the time for a look around inside.
Hiro
1 in 100 kids need therapy. 100 out of 100 kids just want to play.Exhausted parents and overworked therapists struggle to get their kids to do the therapy. We are putting the play in Theraplay with our kid-friendly games that make therapy fun and achievable.
Inner Alliance
Archipelago of Design / Wero
Inner Alliance is a transformational turn-based tactics video game aimed at reinforcing the relationship between gender-responsive leadership, diversity, inclusivity and readiness in defense and national security teams across NATO members and partners.
Inner Alliance promotes evolution in beliefs, attitudes and behaviors by navigating team dynamics in stressful operations. This is a single player game where the player strategizes to complete missions assisting people trapped in extreme climate scenarios. Objectives are presented to the player with the primary goal of rescuing survivors and escorting them to safety. The player develops gender-responsive leadership tracked through community trust and belonging meters.
Mycocosm
Evolver Dynamics
Mycocosm is a casual arcade shooter and resource manager where you take the role of a newly sprouted seedling. Fight off waves of soil-borne enemies using antimicrobial chemicals, and trade for precious nutrients with wandering fungal spores - but beware their deceitful dealings.
Pair It
Night Glory
This 3D memory-matching game, built in Unreal Engine, challenges players to find matching animal pairs hidden in chests. Players explore a 3D world, opening chests to locate identical animals like lions or wolves. Matching pairs earn points; mismatches close the chests. Designed to improve memory, focus, and spatial awareness, the game is ideal for cognitive training. It's especially useful for children and older adults, supporting mental sharpness and memory retention in educational or therapeutic settings.
Retroronto
Starspray Studios Ltd.
Retroronto is an arcade-style city-life simulator, where you explore a thriving metropolis, engage in minigames to earn money, and meet people to unlock newer locations and jobs! Manage your finances, energy, and time in this contemporary life simulator in the big city!
Spatial Navigator
Cognitive Neurorehabilitation Sciences Lab and the KITE TeleNeuroRehab Centre for Acquired Brain Injury at the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute
The Cognitive Neurorehabilitation Sciences Lab and the KITE TeleNeuroRehab Centre, led by Dr. Robin Green, have developed a remote spatial navigation platform to enhance memory and hippocampal function in individuals with TBI, MS, and older adults. Grounded in environmental enrichment, the program features allocentric navigation tasks that engage spatial memory systems. Initial findings show strong feasibility and user engagement. The next phase will gamify the intervention for healthy users through points, badges, leaderboards, and adaptive quests. Multiplayer features, seasonal events, and indoor challenges will add social and motivational elements, promoting long-term use and cognitive resilience through enriched, immersive experiences.
The Gaijin Card
UnplayTheGame
Ethnographic Deckbuilder about immigrant experience in Japan
The Policy Play
Game by Thomas Appleyard
Digital Player Aid by Ethan Dolman
The Policy Play: A Government Relations Game is a competitive game for groups of 8-50. Players play either non-profits or political parties. Through advocacy and coalition building, non-profits influence parties to adjust their platforms.
VocaBoom
rudy_games
Fun little game to memorize new language. You can choose two languages to bomb word blocks matching the given word.
Wordlike
Studio: Heart Drive
Jack Sparaga - Lead Designer & Developer
Paul Drotos - Composer, Prototype Designer
Wordlike is a procedural turn-based dungeon crawler set in a world filled with letters! The game is still in early development and originated as a Major Research Project at Brock University, designed to facilitate the improvement of language skills regardless of demographics while adhering to the high standards of commercial, off-the shelf games.