CGMagazine’s Indie Watch is back with another roundup, this time covering the standout indie releases from June and July 2026. It’s been a surprisingly unique couple of months, with interesting concepts, cozy management loops, and atmospheric creativity. Whether you’re into sorting chaos, feeding monsters, roguelite arenas, or building “neon‑drenched dioramas”, this Indie Watch is for you.
From indies like Snacktorio’s factory‑fresh monster meals and Cat Mail Co.’s adorable postal game to Shift at Midnight’s tense night‑shift, Indie Watch: Must-See Indie Games — June & July 2026 spans a wide range of moods and genres. There’s a cozy early‑access life‑sim in Pawsome Resort, stylish attacks in KAZ, and boss‑rush chaos in Gurei. These games are more than just fun; they are perfect examples of what keeps the indie scene interesting month after month.
Here are some of our favourite indies from June and July 2026.
Snacktorio
Developer: Ellraiser
Release Date: June 4, 2026
Platforms: PC
Played by: Lane Martin
Somehow, in my life, I’ve become the person who cooks. While I’m not a trained chef by any means, after years of cooking, I’d like to believe I’ve become pretty good at it. More to the point, I can certainly relate to throwing plate after plate of meticulously prepared food into a yawning black abyss that constantly hungers for more. This is exactly what indie game Snacktorio is about. The world of Snacktorio is constantly threatened by great ravenous monsters that seek to consume it. It is your job to appease these ferocious beasts by feeding them something else.
To do this, you’ll be growing and harvesting fresh ingredients, feeding them into a series of conveyor belts and factory lines until they have been appropriately assembled and cooked to meet a particular monster’s exacting tastes, and blasting them into the mouths of your hangry patrons. For fans of indie management sims like Satisfactory or Factorio, there is plenty of delicious meat on this bone to gnaw through, with a healthy side of silly, off-the-wall humour as well.
Cat Mail Co.
Developer: Maracas Studio
Release Date: July 9, 2026
Platforms: PC
Played by: Lane Martin
Despite my desire to be a free-wheeling rebel, I have learned some undeniable truths about myself over the years. For one, I love some soft, cute aesthetics. Edgy, teenage me would be aghast, but I persist. Perhaps stranger, though, is my deep love of organizing. Cat Mail Co. is a perfect indie blend of both of these things, and I may never recover. The premise is simple: you are a cat, and you work at a post office. Other cats come to claim packages or drop new ones off to be sent out. It’s pretty much exactly what it says on the tin.
When I first booted up the indie Cat Mail Co., I walked into the back room and saw a massive storeroom with packages strewn about, a literal avalanche of unsorted parcels, and very little guidance about how things should be, and my heart leapt. What followed was some real madness as I plumbed through this backlog of miscellany in order to achieve something workable. New packages come in, old packages will need to be weighed, stamped, and stored properly so that they can go back out.
As players progress, they’ll open up new problems, places to ship things, factors to consider when storing, and a wealth of demanding kitties who need their mail.
Pawsome Resort
Developer: Pixel Puffs
Release Date: June 22, 2026
Platforms: PC
Played by: Lane Martin
I have a pair of cats, and they’re both pretty cool. They’re fuzzy, cute, and excellent to cuddle with when they aren’t being little monsters. In Pawsome Resort, players take care of a wide variety of other people’s exotic animals who are always on their best behaviour. It’s another entry in the ever-growing cozy life-sim genre, complete with cute pixel graphics, townsfolk to get to know, and oodles of options for creating your perfect animal resort.
It should be noted that Pawsome Resort is still deep into early access, so everything feels a bit bare-bones at the moment. The developers have put up an optimistic roadmap that targets next year as a possible release date. However, the game still has plenty of content for prospective animal hoteliers to dig into, crafting their own cozy little retreat while getting to know some very exotic pet owners. If the thought of boarding a few alpacas, a gator, and even an elephant or two sounds interesting, Pawsome Resort might just be worth a look. The capybaras are right around the corner, after all.
Clockfall
Developer: Rever Games GmbH
Release Date: June 4, 2026
Platforms: PC (PlayStation 5 & XBOX Series X|S at a later date)
Played By: Philip Watson
If you wanted a genre bend between tower defence and roguelite, you’d be hard-pressed to find something that fits better than Rever Games’ Clockfall. Although currently in Early Access, Clockfall tosses players into the deep end of calamity, and like The Rogue Prince of Persia, it’s up to the player to turn back the clock and save their town and friends from complete annihilation.
Clockfall gameplay is fractured into two parts: the dungeon-crawling Hades-like roguelite gameplay fans have clamoured back to in the years since it launched, and a tower defence where you protect your town from the calamity that befalls it. The novel part is where character building is concerned: you not only have to build your character to survive dungeons, but he also needs to be up to snuff defending the town too, so cutting down enemies fast is not the only thing on the menu. While Clockfall is an indie still in Early Access, it’s a good enough experience to make roguelite fans break out the sticks at a moment’s notice (and access is on the cheaper side too!).
Momento
Developer: Fat Alien Cat
Release Date: June 6, 2026
Platforms: PC
Played by: Lane Martin
One evening, about a year ago, my partner came out of the bedroom to discover why I had not yet come to bed. She found me on our couch, tears in my eyes, playing the last stage of the game Unpacking. I’ve tried to explain why I was so weepy a fair few times, but I suspect she just thinks I’m crazy. Anyhow, Momento is a game about organizing the things that you own and how they reflect the life you’ve lived.
Obviously, the developers of Momento have similar tastes in strange, artsy games where stories are told through gameplay, as I do. It wears its Unpacking influences loudly while proudly boasting its own spin on the whole “sorting through a series of possessions while organizing a space” genre of games. You see, in Momento there are choices and multiple paths forward. Small decisions, like a doll or a poster, balloon out, affecting the lives of the people who live in these spaces, leading to multiple playthroughs, secrets to uncover, and some great designs.
HYPERWIRED
Developer: SIDRALGAMES
Release Date: July 2, 2026
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X|S
Played by: Jordan Biordi
When I first saw HYPERWIRED, my first thought was “Oh, so it’s like if Chibi Robo was a twin-stick shooter?” And while it may seem like a flippant joke, it really is amazing how well that concept would actually work, because this game proves it. It’s a fast-paced, high-octane shoot-em-up where players need to constantly replenish their ammunition, health and fuel by plugging into little outlets dotted around procedurally generated maps.
It creates an extremely fun gameplay loop of managing your resources, while also needing to be incredibly aware of each little battlefield. Players can also plug into upgrade outlets to boost their abilities, but when it works best, it creates incredible tension, and players need to literally ground themselves, restricting their movement while dodging bullets left and right to gain the ability to fight at peak performance. It’s further proof that one good idea, when well executed, can really propel a game forward, especially in the indie scene.
KAZ
Developer: Kalinarm
Release Date: July 13, 2026
Platforms: PC
Played by: Jordan Biordi
I’ll be honest, I was mostly intrigued by KAZ because the character in the title looked like 2-D from Gorillaz (my favourite band), but once I started playing, it was almost impossible to put down. Here’s a prime example of how a simple idea, presented with style and charm, can make for an incredible experience. KAZ is a straightforward score-attack game where players must move their icon across random grids, defeating enemies and reaching the required score to progress.
There are no complex combos or advanced techniques—just bumping pictures into other pictures. But the game mixes things up with its roguelike elements, giving players small buffs with each new round, allowing for higher scores and more opportunities to defeat enemies. When things start heating up, it becomes a frantic flurry of button presses requiring a fair bit of strategy and speed, maintaining an insane level of indie fun.
Heave Ho 2
Developer: Le Cartel Studio
Release Date: May 5, 2026
Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PC
Played by: Jordan Biordi
If you know anything about Heave Ho, then you’ll know what makes Heave Ho 2 as good as it is. The first game was a hilarious physics-based platformer that was both incredibly fun and silly in its own right, but went a long way to show off what made the Nintendo Switch so desired as a party-game platform. Heave Ho 2 is genuinely just more of a good thing, now with a greater focus on co-op play.
There are more creative levels, more hilarious situations and more potential for ruining (or strengthening) friendships, as the game eschews the first game’s possibility for solo play, for a pure 2–4 player experience. It maintains its predecessor’s focus on fluid physics-based fun by swinging and grabbing anything they can. It’s lighthearted and colourful, and if you’re having friends over for a game night, it’s the perfect game for genuine laughs.
Shift at Midnight
Developer: Bun Muen
Release Date: July 22, 2026
Platforms: PC, XBOX Series X|S
Played by: Jordan Biordi
While I love a good spooky indie game, Shift at Midnight could genuinely sell me on its elevator pitch alone. Basically, what if Papers, Please, inKONBINI: One Store, Many Stories, and Among Us were one really well-made horror game? It doesn’t sound like it should work, but it perfectly brings together so many elements to create an experience that is captivating and genuinely scary at times.
In Shift at Midnight, players must work the night shift at a gas station convenience store while also being on the lookout for strange doppelgangers taking the form of humans. If the doppelgangers are able to leave, a horrible monster known as the Entity appears at the end of the shift, and players must fight for survival. It’s a compelling mix of needing to complete a task while also maintaining the stress of trying to identify discrepancies in documentation, while also battling horrible creatures. It even pulls off quite a few good jump scares!
Pass The Fear
Developer: PlayMud Studio
Release Date: July 22, 2026
Platforms: PC
Played By: Philip Watson
I have played through a sea of roguelites since SuperGiant’s Hades captured my attention (and many yet for Indie Watch), and Pass The Fear continues pushing the envelope with a novel art style and shelving the melee combat for big-time shooting. Pass The Fear is what I would imagine The Binding of Isaac would be, if it were more anime-centred and less about religious sacrifice.
This game is what happens when you combine the ethos of Hades and The Binding of Isaac, and staple it with sticker-like graphics complete with co-op. Each stage gets harder, and PlayMud Studio asks the player to persevere through hundreds of bullets raining down on you. If you’ve finished your third completion of Vampire Survivors or just want a simple 15-minute action-packed romp with mindless shooting, Pass The Fear could be what the doctor ordered.
Gurei
Developer: Lobo Sagaz Studio
Release Date: July 22, 2026
Platforms: PC, Nintendo
Played By: Philip Watson
If you’re in the mood to play a title very Mega Man-coded, Gurei could be the next game on your hit list. Gurei drops you into the colourless world of the Kami, mystical spirits who you must defeat in any order and obtain their power to, well, defeat more of the Kami. This is a boss rush title, and it skips the stage aspect (found in Mega Man X and other 2D titles) to toss you immediately in the deep end.
What Gurei leaves on the cutting room floor in stage design, they make up for in electric boss battles. While gearing up to face a monkey spirit, you have to contend with the fight getting harder as he weakens and summons copies of himself to also try to kill you (his copies also throw literal crap at you). After the fight, you gain the power to summon a decoy of yourself, which fools nearly every boss with hilarious effect. If you’re looking for a compelling story, you might need to look elsewhere. But if you want sharp, 2D boss fight action, Gurei is it.
Midnight Moments
Developer: Happy Volcano
Release Date: June 6, 2026
Platforms: PC
Played by: Lane Martin
On paper, Midnight Moments can be easily described as cyberpunk LEGO. There is very little guidance on the systems in place, and no suggestion as to what the player should be doing. When I first booted it up, I was lost. I quickly fiddled with a few settings, made some poor aesthetic decisions on a doomed diorama, and left feeling a bit unfulfilled. I stepped away, but Midnight Moments continued to simmer in my brain, teasing me with the possibilities of what I could create.
It’s pretty obvious that Midnight Moments is a game about vibes. No matter how hard you work at it, players will always end up with a rainslicked, neon-drenched scene that screams gritty cyberpunk down to its very core. It gives the player a small selection of tools that can branch out into innumerable possibilities within that specific creative space. Other than that, there isn’t much going on. No points, levels, or progression hooks, just a set of tools and the player’s own creativity.
