Dev ➤ Test ➤ Repeat | August 2025

If you just wanna see the games showcased at this event, click here.

I live in Denmark in the Copenhagen Area. In Copenhagen we have this volunteer run bi-monthly event going called Dev ➤ Test ➤ Repeat (click the link to join their Discord server!) which more or less is what it sounds like on the tin. You develop some kind of game (usually), you come to this event, you test it with people and then you take that feedback with you home to do some more Development, rinse and repeat.

For those of you who don't know what this is it's primarily run by two fine people named Alexander Birke and Kristian Hedeholm and has been going for a while now. The event is completely free of charge, but tickets are limited to be sure we are not overcrowding the spaces they can get access to. I'm a regular attendee for this event as I think it's an important community event that we should keep alive. This time we were at the Games Denmark offices at Hub42 in Copenhagen.

We also had free pizza and drinks! (This time sponsored by Games Denmark as well!)

The Showcase

I came to this showcase to show off a jam game I did with a little group of people. We are trying to start our cooperative game studio! We made a small internal game jam over four days, picked the theme "Lost and Found" and then went to work. We came up with a small jam game you can play on PC right now for free on Windows and Linux! The game is about you being a ghost who is tasked with finding other ghosts lost items that they were burried with going off of limited information. But you have to be quick, because it's a graveyard shift. Come morning you'll disappear! So get to work!

• Company: Star Grease Studio
• Platforms: PC
• Check Us Out: Itch

Sea of Rifts

This game has come up before and that's because it's been in development for so long! But this time around I decided to give it another look as it had been at least 6 or so months since I last played and boy had they moved since I last played. You can read the last entry I wrote about their game in March here. If you are unaware, Sea of Rifts is a procedurally generated roguelite naval game where you command a ship through eldritch inspired infested waters while you make your travel from shore to shore looking for adventure, treasure, pillaging, artifacts, weird dimensions in time and space, or whatever else you decide is the goal. The ocean is your bathtub. Since last time I played the game ran smoother, the UI was cleaner (even if there still were some UX challenges yet to solve), tavern names are now generated as well and they had just introduced a new type of biome called Sunken Cities which are somewhat Atlantis inspired. Snake your way in-between tall golden buildings as the haunting winds attempt to push you into your doom against Titan creatures. Large humanoid mechanised statues that walks the ocean floor but tower over you. With one swift attack like a hammer falling from the heavens they can sink your ship swiftly and efficiently. This new type of biome is sure to increase the intrigue and deepen the games already impressive lore.

I had a chat with one of the writers who were demoing the game today and he was excited to tell me that the team is aiming for a full demo of the game and are just waiting for the right time to drop it to make the biggest splash. Be sure to follow this team as they set sail towards a release hopefully in the near future.

• Company: Out of Bounds Games
• Platforms: PC, Steamdeck
• Check Them Out: Website

Transit

What do Time Loops, Teenage Angst and Sockpuppets have in common? Not much from what I could tell other than you'll find all of it in this game. I had a chance to sit down and talk with the Game Director Toke and their Programmer Aleksander about the experience I had of playing the game. You step into the shoes of a young woman who finds herself in a metro station. You are presented with puzzles you have to solve from context clues in the environment like opening a panel that turns off door panels and the likes. Or a ticketing machine that seemingly loops back on itself unless you use it at the right time to get a ticket that you can clearly see through the glass of the machine. But the first time you try and get this ticket, you get a sockpuppet instead. It takes over your left hand and it's not happy about it, but then neither is your character! The sockpuppet tells you that it saw someone just like you while making rude remarks about your apperance and you realise that it might have seen your missing sister. You quickly find out that you are stuck in a tight little time loop with a talking sock, your own limbo, and unless you figure out how to navigate this weird and abstract dream-like world where things keep looping, you have no chance of making it out. But the sock puppet has other plans. According to the Game's director it has been banished from the underworld and wishes to go back there and will use you, it's new host, to do so. As you go you will meet other spirits along the way whom you have to help in order to progress as they tell you their own tragic stories.

The games graphics are aiming for realistic and really makes use of Unreal's Niagara system to play with pretty particle effects and cool bloomy highlight shaders for their lighting. They draw inspiration from Twin Peaks unnerving storytelling and the emotional impact of games like Firewatch. They are currently looking for partners to ensure funding and publication, however they aim for Steam release initially and also consoles if they can get away with it. Expected release is Q4 2026.

• Company: Fable Systems
• Platforms: PC, Steamdeck, Console
• Check Them Out: Website

Gold Express

I was asked if I wanted to try this game and so I sat down with a tablet in hand with a screen that said "Press [Space]". The developers laughed and saw the problem but really I just needed to touch the screen to begin. You are presented with what appears to be a cowboy sitting in a minecart about to head into a mountain and that's exactly what happens. The game is a 2D infinite runner where the goal is to stay upright and use dynamite to make daring jumps over canyons, through walls to get bonus points and to collect gold, expressly for as long as you can through various biomes. The game is a bit of a roguelite as every time you die you might make it a bit farther but the gold you collect stays so you can buy upgrades in the shop like extra lives, new outfits for your cart and characters as well as other power-ups. There is also meta progression with various objectives that gives you more rewards. I tried it for about 30 minutes as I talked to the developers in-between and each cycle was quite short lasting about 5 minutes at most before you made some mistake and fell out your cart.

The game is very reminiscent of classics like Happy Wheels and Hill Climb Racing even with similarly charmingly simple graphics. The developers assured me that they still have some work to do both in terms of UX but also art as it's not all there yet to give the right experience. They wish to have very short development cycles for their games ranging between 3-6 months so it's grounded and limited how big the scope can be. However they also told me that they expect to get this game out on Android by September this year so they can move on! So keep an eye out on this game if you want a fun little time killer. If the game does well they might pursue iOS as well.

• Company: Dream Jam Games
• Platforms: Android
• Check Them Out: Itch

Sudoku Clash

This game I only got to observe rather than play however the people I watched play really got into it. Sudoku Clash is a brand new title by developers who previously worked at Tactile, Portaplay and other well-known danish companies. In just one month they put together a hotseat MVP of their multiplayer game which is a competitive version of the popular Sudoku game. I had a chat with the game's designer Nathalie who told me that they aim to make a turn-based multiplayer game where the goal is to solve as much of the Sudoku correctly as you can while the other players are doing the same. She said the idea was inspired by her grandmother who loves solving Sudoku puzzles but found real-time Sudoku solving against other players much too fast, despite being a competitive gamer herself. The turn-based idea arose from this and the gameplay is fairly solid as you put in the numbers you think goes in the spot you are at to gain points (or lose points if you get it wrong!), or use power-ups and traps to either help you or mess up the other players ability to solve the Sudoku.

The game has a fairly clean and cozy 2D aesthetic and is, for the time it took them to make, a fairly polished experience. They are joining this year's Danish Gamescom delegation to go look for investors and see if they can take the game further to hopefully build their new studio up. There are a couple of people in the studio but I only managed to catch two of them at the end of the event for chat and a picture.

• Company: Glitchfjørd Games
• Platforms: Android, iOS, Web
• Check Them Out: Discord

Join in

If you are in Denmark and around the Copenhagen Area you should definitely come by! Just join the Discord Server and look out for the next event announcement: Dev ➤ Test ➤ Repeat. Even if you don't have a game to show, come be a tester. Someone's gotta do it right? It's not just a testing event, it's also an amazing opportunity to network with other fellow developers. All people who showed up today are indie developers part of a growing and close knit community. Even if what you have isn't much, still bring it and have some people test it! That's how you can figure out if you are going in the right direction with your idea, or if you need to tweak and redesign some things.

Test a lot, and test often. Especially with strangers who will give you the honest truth!

Hope to see you there. If you see me, please don't hesitate to come and say hello! You are also welcome to hit me up on BlueSky any time!

(psst! The event is free, there's free drinks and pizza and some times industry people show up too!)