January 2026 Update

Jan 7th, 2026 by Tim Cullings

Happy New Year, Indies!

Like a never-ending rougelike, a year starts anew, bringing on fresh possibilities and lessons learned from the previous run. The start of the year is a bit slow, but we’ve got some things to put on your calendar…

2025 was another challenging year for the games industry in general, more layoffs, lack of funding, job displacement through new technology and global political changes. It was also a year of major growth and expansion for Seattle Indies and we look to keep that momentum going in the New Year with events and programming to help keep the largest independent game developer community in North America growing, thriving and welcoming new members.

The New Year also brings some big changes to the organization. In late 2025 Rabecca Rocha gave notice that she would be stepping down from the Seattle Indies Board after nearly four years of dedicated service. Rabecca was a tireless champion for our Diversity Collective+ events and community having organized several successful Pride and Devsgiving events along with taking the lead on hosting game jams and hackathons, being a lead organizer on SIX, tabling for Seattle Indies at various events and career fairs. Her energy was infectious and will be greatly missed, we wish her nothing but the best in all of her future endeavors. Seattle Indies is a far better place for her involvement, she walked into her first GGJ very nervous, not knowing where she would fit in and found she was right at home and flourished from there.

Rabecca’s departure makes room for a new member to join the Board of Seattle Indies and we couldn’t be happier and more proud to announce that Olga Sheverieva has accepted a position on the Board with her term beginning on Jan 1, 2026. Olga is a Sales and Business Development professional with over six years of experience working with both service providers and product companies across the gaming industry. She is passionate about the magic of professional communities and is a fan of the creative people who make this industry thrive. She was a key member of the organizing team that produced the first SLICE in 2025, bringing in many of the sponsors, speakers and partners that made it such a memorable event and she has been a lead on the Founders Club events helping to bring in speakers, sponsors and guests for those events that were such a hit in 2025. Olga also organized the first ever showcase of games from Ukrainian game developers at SIX 2025, helping her fellow developers back home get some much needed exposure at a US games expo while they are still living under the ongoing conditions of the war. She is a key member of the Conspire organizing team as well as a leader of the initiative to bring Women-focused game dev events back to Seattle for the first time in nearly a decade. She has worked tirelessly to support the local community during incredibly challenging times, please join us in welcoming Olga as our newest Board member!

Our first major event of the year is coming up quickly, Seattle Indies will once again be hosting a Global Game Jam site for the 11th consecutive year and we’ll be back at DigiPen Institute of Technology for the 3rd year in a row. Register now for our biggest annual in-person game jam happening Friday Jan 30-Feb 1, 2026.

Just under a month later we’ll be hosting the rescheduled WILA Games and Education Industry Collider on Thursday February 26, 2026. This will be an electric evening bringing game developers and educators together for a panel discussion, roundtable discussions, a mini expo floor and a fireside chat with Portal creator Kim Swift. Thanks to foundry10 for sponsoring the event and Cornish Institute of the Arts at Seattle U for hosting, we hope to see you there!

The following week March 4-6, 2026 we will be hosting our second annual international trade mission to Seattle that we are calling Slice of SLICE – the International Executive Summit. We will be welcoming game developers, studio founders and government officials from around the world to Seattle for 2 days of studio tours, networking opportunities and more to get everyone ready for GDC 2026. This year we expect delegates from Europe, the UK, Mexico, Canada, Hawaii and more. More information to come soon.

Many of our readers might not be aware but since July of 2018 the bulk of this newsletter has been written by Jakub Kasztalski, creator of beloved indie titles Rain on Your Parade, Just Crow Things, the Headliner series and more. Right around SIX 2025 Jakub made the decision to leave Seattle for the sunny shores of Lake Michigan and this issue will be his final contribution to our community as the lead writer of this monthly update. We can’t thank Jakub enough for his dedication to promoting our events, your releases and keeping us all informed about what is happening in the Seattle Indies community. The newsletter will continue on but we will miss him as a writer, a friend and the pillar of this community that he was for over a decade that he called Seattle and our community home.

Main Menu Jam is happening on Jan 3-4. Just make a main menu! That’s it! The theme? An emotion. Convey any emotion on the main menu.

Check it out on Itch.io here!

Now less than two weeks away, PG Connects London 2026 will soon open the doors to the global games industry.

Joined by transmedia sectors and some of the world’s most successful global apps, January 19–20 are set to be two power days of new connections, insight, and deal making – supercharging your business for 2026. 

Just check out the attendee breakdown so far:

Ticket holders get near-immediate access to MeetToMatch, meaning you can start arranging meetings with attendees from companies like Tencent, Epic Games, The Pokemon Company, NCSoft, PlayStation, Duolingo, Supercell, Google, Konvoy, Coffee Stain Studios, EA, AppLovin, TikTok and many, many more, in advance.

Ensure you don’t miss out on the networking and business making by attending the UK’s biggest and most influential b2b games conference of the year! REGISTER NOW

Global Game Jam 2026 is on and happening from Friday January 30 – Sunday February 1, 2026 and we will be back at DigiPen Institute of Technology for the third year in a row as our main site location with an option for Seattle based teams to jam at AIE on Saturday during an expanded Indie Support Group. Register now on our Meetup Page and join our site on the GGJ website.

Seattle Indies will be appearing at WA State Gaming Expo 2026 and we’ll have room to demo up to 10 games. 

Register here: https://forms.gle/532CzjfAVrn8i4Ss5

Teams will be provided a table, chairs, tablecloths, power and internet access to demo their games.

This year we will be charging $150/team to cover costs, please make payments here: https://donorbox.org/wa-state-gaming-expo-2026 

More information about WA State Gaming Expo can be found here https://wagamingexpo.com/ 

This year they are combining the event with Anime Washington and it is a bit earlier than previous years on Feb 6-8, 2026 at the Washington State Fair and Events Center in Puyallup, WA

IndieGameBusiness® is hosting the next installment of our long running Sessions series on February 18, 2026. Get ready to learn how to craft standout pitch decks and investor winning stories in expert led sessions designed to sharpen your pitching skills.

IndieGameBusiness® Sessions: From Pitch to Partnership

On February 18th, IGB will host the next installment of its long-running Sessions series, offering an event packed with insightful presentations and discussions. Industry experts will cover a range of essential topics related to perfecting your pitch. As the industry’s longest-running video game conference for publishers and developers, this event is a must-attend for anyone looking to stay ahead in the world of game development and publishing. Don’t miss out on this incredible opportunity to learn and connect!

Save the Date:

📅| February 18, 2026
🌐| Online – YouTube, Twitch, LinkedIn
🕘| 9am – 5pm Eastern

Don’t miss out! Register Now and help your game reach its full potential!

Are you interested in speaking? We are always looking for speakers for future events. Each speaker receives a stipend. You can apply here.

The Games and Education Industry Collider returns Thursday, February 26, 2026, at 6:00 PM at our new venue Cornish Playhouse (just across Seattle Center from PacSci). The Washington Interactive Learning Alliance (WILA) co-founded by Seattle Indies, Seattle EdTech Meetup, foundry10, and Perfect Day Games, is teaming up to bring you a classic Collider evening event featuring a fireside chat with Portal creator Kim Swift, a panel discussion with industry leaders in the space, breakout roundtable sessions and our usual expo floor.

PAX East is coming up on Mar 26 – 29, 2026 in Boston! Go Read all about it here!

If you want to get a list of all upcoming game event shows and get ready early, The Indie House has published this fantastic list of upcoming festival that’s exactly that. Well worth a bookmark!

Hello!  We’re The Rat Zone, an indie studio focused on creating all sorts of bite-sized experiences you’ll hopefully consider “games”, or, perhaps, “game-like things”.  Our core team is comprised of…

‘absolutegoob’ – An artist and resident evil goblin.  Some say he used to be a technical artist and had to use lua at some point… scary…

‘ashfyre’ – A programmer who does scary things with scary numbers and equations that make the minds of most sane people (and rats) break to bits.  Looked at me quite confused when I asked for a bio but noted that her greatest weakness was causing bugs to appear in our games simply by looking at them.  We are now investing in blindfolds.

‘conorati’ – A designer/programmer hybrid of sorts who has a perfectly healthy and not at all obsessive love for Gravity Falls and chocolate milk.

And for our latest game we’re joined by ‘pirdblant’ – An artist who likes plants and neat creatures.  Creature Kitchen would not exist without her, seriously!

What inspired you to become a game developer?

For ‘absolutegoob’: The rise of smaller scale games making game development look more approachable.

For ‘ashfyre’: In high school, mostly making mods for Minecraft and what not to try to show my friends.  That’s always been the main driving factor for me – just showing people things I’ve made is cool.

For ‘conorati’: Playing RuneScape.  The developers for that game back in the late 2000s and early 2010s put out weekly updates and dev blogs.  Reading about people making a game I was actively playing made it click that… wait… people make games!  Like, actual humans.  This could be something I could do.  And then it kinda snowballed from there.

For ‘pirdblant’: Long story short – Shadow of the Colossus

What is one important lesson you have learned in your time as a game developer?

From ‘absolutegoob’: Scope small.

From ‘ashfyre’: A lot of people say “perfect is the enemy of good”, but I think it’s more accurate to say “perfect is the enemy of done”.  You can hone things later, or maybe you’ll find that your workarounds and hacks actually make the game more charming in the end.

From ‘conorati’: Ask for help.  Seriously.  It’s better to ask for someone’s assistances than to keep banging your head against a wall!  Nowadays if I’m stuck on something for more than 20 minutes I go to others.  

From ‘pirdblant’: Collaborative efforts are much more productive and fulfilling when everyone gets along and communicates effectively.

What is the one piece of advice you would share today with your younger self before you started your career as a game developer?

First  from ‘absolutegoob’: Don’t try to do everything yourself.  There’s value in having a team that can complement each other’s strengths.  Being on a team also helps what you create be enriched with the ideas of others.

Second from ‘ashfyre’: Make stuff.  Go make a video game.  Will it be bad?  Maybe.  But bad things are still meaningful, which means they are actually good.

Third from ‘conorati’: Keep your scope in check.  It feels really fulfilling to create something and watch others engage with it.  The motivation I get from that is exponential.  Instead of trying to create this massive game with all the bells and whistles, build small and smart.  It will help release things quicker and also help keep your game more manageable to create.  Of everything I’ve created, my favorite projects are the ones that have taken around a year or two to make.

And fourth comes from ‘pirdblant’: Figure out what you actually like and go for it!  Sounds simple, but it took me this long to stop trying to do what I think others want and make something I know I would want to see.

How has the Seattle Indies community had an impact on your career?

Seattle Indies helped us connect with local developers and supporters of indie games!  The amount of connections we’ve made at the Seattle Indies Expo is staggering!  Since there are introverts amongst us, it’s really refreshing to have events that don’t overwhelm and allow for breaks.  Speaking of those events, they’ve been game-changing (no pun intended but now the pun is indeed intended).  The feedback we receive and motivation these sort of public showings provide is a huge motivator for us to keep creating.

What is something interesting and unexpected that people would be surprised to learn about you?

We’re not rats!  Okay, to be serious something that may be surprising to people is we all went to the same college, which is how we met.  For two years we made student games together and from that experience we knew we worked well together.  When graduating we agreed once our lives were in order (or… at least somewhat in order… as much order as you’d imagine people who called their studio “The Rat Zone” can feasibly have) we’d get back together.  Four or so years later the stars aligned and The Rat Zone was manifested out of that.

To that end, our last game, CHAIRS (you may recognize it, we brought it to the last Seattle Indies Expo), was based on a game jam we made as students.  Here’s what that game looked like back then…

And here’s what the full game ended up looking like!

What project are you working on at the moment that has you the most excited and how can we learn more about it?

Right now we’re finishing up Creature Kitchen which will be coming out early February, wishlist that now if interested!  A polished version of the demo we had at the 2025 Seattle Indie Expo is available online for those who want to check out the game early.  We’ll let readers in on a little secret… Seattle Indies inspired a very well hidden and obscure easter egg in Creature Kitchen.  Happy hunting!

Game Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3097300/Creature_Kitchen/

Demo Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4116110/Creature_Kitchen_Demo/

Not to cheat with a double answer but we’re already making our next!  News on that front will appear on our website’s blog as well as our socials.  We’ll give you an exclusive sneak peak now!

How can people follow you and your work?

We exist all over the web!  Right now our most active spaces are Discord (https://discord.gg/KbWcNHcz4t) and Bluesky (https://bsky.app/profile/therat.zone)

Here’s our Meetup Page with all future upcoming events. 

The Seattle Blender User Group is happening on Jan. 3, 10am to 1pm at Academy of Interactive Entertainment – Seattle Center Armory – Suite 405 (305 Harrison St, Suite 405 · Seattle, WA). Seabug’s goals are to help beginners learn Blender, create Blender opportunities in the Pacific Northwest, showcase advanced Blender tools and projects, and celebrate open source graphics in all forms.

Seattle Indies Board Game Meetup is on Jan. 4 at 7pm at Phoenix Comics and Games. Come play board games with Indie Game Developers!

The Northside Social takes place Jan. 8, 6pm-9pm at Watershed Pub & Kitchen (10104 3rd Ave NE · Seattle, WA). It’s time to get together and swap stories. Put down your keyboards and brave the outdoors. Let’s meet for some food, a drink, and some good conversation!

The East Side Meetup is happening on Jan. 13, 6:30pm to 9:30pm at Pint & Pie Public House, located on 7858 Leary Way NE , Redmond, WA. Let’s put down our controllers and keyboards, get together, and enjoy some good conversation in person. We can’t wait to hear your stories and connect with new faces!

An In-Person Writer’s Group will take place at Hugo House on Jan. 14 at 6:30 PM. For anyone interested or working on projects in game writing, narrative design, voice acting or more– swing by Seattle Indies’ In-Person Writer’s Group! Bring your narrative games, scripts, flowcharts, character bibles or any other story materials for sharing and feedback.

The SnoCo Social is happening on Jan. 16, 6pm at Zulu’s Board Game Cafe (5116 196th St SW Suite 203, Lynnwood, WA). Hang out at a local game store with fellow Snohomish Co and adjacent folks over food, drinks, engaging conversations, and maybe some board gaming!

The monthly Seattle Indies Social will take place on Jan. 20, 7pm-10pm at Stoup Brewing – Capitol Hill located on 1158 Broadway, Seattle, WA. Join us for some well-deserved mingling, drinks, and socialization! Make some new friends, catch up with old ones, and find out what the community’s up to.

The Game Club will take place on Jan. 21 at 7pm right on our Discord, focusing on Little Rocket Lab. What a book club is to discussion of literature, this event is to discussion of game design. Every month, we agree to play a game, then meet to discuss and analyze its design and presentation.

The Playtesting Club will take place on Jan. 21 at 8pm at Stoup Brewery on 1158 Broadway. Looking for feedback on your game? Only had other game developers try it? Playtesting Club is for you!

Diversity Collective+  is happening on Jan. 25, 12pm-2pm at Phoenix Comics and Games. Come to network, socialize, and discuss issues related to diversity and inclusion in game development! Folks who identify as an underrepresented minority in the game industry are welcome.

Indie Co-working Support Group  in-person will take place every Saturday,  from 1:00 PM to 6:30 PM PST, at the Academy of Interactive Entertainment.  Seattle Center wifi will be available for use. Please bring everything you need to be productive. We will be meeting every Saturday of the month at AIE going forward. We have also added a Co-working voice channel in Discord for people to use any time they want a quiet space to work alongside their peers.

Seabug Study Hall is a new series of events taking place every week on Thursday, 9pm to 11pm, right on our Discord! Join others from the Seattle Blender User Group for a lo-fi chill out online study hall. Bring a project, just chat, and have a good time with some unstructured project sharing and Q&A.

Kodybod Studios shared that their Kickstarter is now live, check it out here.

Kirill announced their game! Check out the trailer here!

Conorati shared that “Creature Kitchen,” one of the games The Rat Zone showed at the Seattle Indies Expo last year, now has a public demo! Go play it here!

Ken (Holo) released a demo for “Seas of Raesenia” as well, take a look!

Jared Gardner shared their junior year college game, Megalocephalo! It’s a short and sweet run-and-fun platformer where you’re a flapjack octopus in a mech suit fighting other various small animals in mech suits. It’s out for free on Steam!

Wolfgang shared a piece of writing they’ve done on the game industry, go read it here!

Mike Lasch just launched a small self-published mobile game, Boot the Dispute! Check out the trailer here!

Renee (Potions: A Curious Tale) has done a reddit AMA about her journey, go read it here!

Angel M. contributed announcer voice lines for a recent jam game Super Catto Ball. Go check it out! 

Henry Solberg shared a python library they made for their own games, check it out!

H.  shared a free game Tittivillus Teaches Typning – the ultimate educational* typing game, perfect for if you’re a 12th century monk trying to get his fancy manuscript done in time to please a grumpy abbot. Check it out here!

Zach K. updated their website, and wrote a little section about their “GameDev Story”. If you are curious, you can read it right here!

Harassment Policy, AAPI, Black Lives Matter, and Resources

Seattle Indies stands with the AAPI community. We are here for our members who have been affected by the rise in anti-Asian hate crimes both locally and nationally. For further resources to educate yourself on the issue and how to take action, here is a useful link: https://anti-asianviolenceresources.carrd.co/

Seattle Indies believes the stories of the victims of sexual harassment and assault in the games industry that have been shared. We strongly condemn the actions by people in power preying on the dreams of vulnerable people trying to make their way in the industry. We strive to build an inclusive community that welcomes all minorities to provide a safe environment and a better vision for the game industry.

While our code of conduct states a zero-tolerance policy for harassment of any kind, we are especially sensitive to the daily challenges faced by womxn due to the ingrained sexism that has existed in the structure of the games industry for far too long. We are actively working to build a better community of game developers, and we all need to do better.

Additionally, Board Member Angel Mero  has offered to be a personal resource for anyone who needs help, someone to talk to or some guidance on next steps if you have experienced harassment in the industry either at our events or elsewhere. She can be reached at angel@seattleindies.org.

Our friends at Take This Org have compiled valuable resources for anyone in immediate need of professional help for their situation.

Lastly, Seattle Indies and Diversity Collective+ support Black Lives Matter. Here are some resources compiled by Diversity Collective+ for how you can offer support, whether this is financial, contributing to petitions, preparing for protests, or getting informed. If you have additional resources, comment below and we will add them.

As always, keep an eye on our Discord for any last-minute news and discussion, and let us know about any projects you’re working on that you’d like shared on our Steam or Itch collections or follow us on all of our social media platforms.

If you want to join our mailing list to get this update sent to your inbox monthly you can Subscribe on LinkedIn.