Wholesome Games teamed up with The Game Awards today for an indie game broadcast showcasing over 20 upcoming titles. Dubbed Wholesome Snack: The Game Awards Edition, the 30-minute show revealed a surprise sequel to Toem, an update on Winter Burrow, and a handful of proper “world premieres.”
Wholesome Games is known for running indie game showcases that primarily focus on “cozy” games. Previous Wholesome Directs have featured plenty of reveals and surprise releases. This Game Awards edition was no different, with a few of its games and updates launching today and later this week.
The biggest news of the show is Toem 2, a sequel to 2021’s black-and-white photography game Toem: A Photo Adventure. No details were revealed beyond a quick logo reveal, but the project is currently in development. That wasn’t the only sequel reveal. This year’s Duck Detective: The Secret Salami is also getting a new installment, Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping.
The show featured a few release date reveals. The minimalist river exploration game Naiad is available now after a surprise release during the show. Idle game Rusty’s Retirement also got a free update released during the show, which adds new crops and a winter biome. Narrative adventure Pine: A Story of Loss, a hand-drawn game about a woodworker dealing with grief, is set to launch this Friday.
Over 20 games were highlighted in total, and there were plenty of standouts. Winter Burrow, a game revealed during Xbox’s 2024 summer showcase, got a new trailer during the presentation. The clip showed off more of its winter survival mechanics, including its cooking system. We got a new trailer for Despelote announcing that it’ll be coming to Switch as well as previously announced platforms. My personal highlight of the show is Piece by Piece, a game about repairing broken items set to launch in 2025.
You can find the full list of games shown during the broadcast below. You can now wishlist most of them on Steam, and a few games have new demos out now.
- Capy Castaway
- Tales of Seikyu
- Piece by Piece
- Rusty’s Retirement
- Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping
- Lou’s Lagoon
- Pine: A Story of Loss
- River Towns
- Spirit Swap: Lofi Beats to Match-3 To
- Winter Burrow
- Snufkin: Memories of Moomin Valley — Fuddler’s Courtship
- Aikyam
- Loftia
- Star Birds
- Locomoto
- Naiad
- A Waddleful Life
- Pinbleton Park
- Despelote
- Sugardew Island
- Wylde Society
- Toem 2