Kaleidoscopic.

Edition number seven was an all-timer. Could not have asked for a more memorable way to sail into the sunny season. Thank you, sincerely, for being there, being part of it, and being UGE. High-fives to Ginger, the first four-pawed UGE visitor.

We're taking a short break, but we'll be back in a mere SIX-ISH WEEKS. Mark your calendars for Sunday 23 August.

Photographic highlights are above and below, thanks to Yan Cong. Chris Chen, and Zhijia.

You can also follow and gossip about us on Instagram and Bluesky. Feedback keeps UGE vital, so if you have any thoughts, we would really, truly appreciate hearing from you.

Works featured in edition #7

• Abigail by Hapshapen Games

• Dykesommar by Zoe Arcaina

  • Zoe recommends the documentary Barbara Forever, a BIG influence on Dykesommar. The film is currently playing at the EYE Filmmuseum.

• Hedgeborough by Mary Tallontire

  • Ducks confirmed for Hedgeborough 2! 🦆

  • Read Mary’s dissertation on how games can help players be more curious about local biodiversity.

  • If this has made you curious about Amsterdam biodiversity, consider joining your closest “National Moth Night” (nationale nachtvlindernacht) event this coming weekend. The Vlinderstichting does incredible work in tracking the status of moth and butterfly species in the Netherlands, and offers many ways to get involved.

• Free Books by Papertrail (Apsara Flury and Livio Liechti)

• Mystery under Magi-Mart by Bodie H.

• Mystery City Games

• Thanks to the wonderful team at 50 Unread Messages for showing us a sneak peek of Project Acro!

Community Updates

• Congrats to UGE fam Fanaar, Puck, and Alexandria, all of whom successfully graduated last week!

• Nomad Studio’s Wyvern Tales (UGE #5, May 2026) is now officially a part of the Dutch media archive at the Beeld en Geluid!

• Lucas Lugarinho (Ghost Rococó, UGE #6) will be showing their game Pacifier at the group show “Metabolising Time” in MU Eindhoven. Maybe you can make it to opening night?

• Pigeon: A Love Story (UGE #3, March 2026) has a release date: 6th August 2026. To tide you over until then, watch UGE Krish and Toby the Pigeon chat with creator Alex Taylor at A MAZE.

• Quentin Vijoux (Beware of the Cartographer, UGE #6) has a gorgeous new downloadable “print-and-play” solo dungeon crawler game: One Torch Fourteen Shadows.

• There are some fascinating talks at this LAN Party summer school webinar series on art in games, including our friends SideQuest on 17th July and Janne Schimmel on 31st July.

Recommendations from edition #7

• Loved the tactile feel of Abigail’s world? Here are some other hand-made games to look forward to:

  • Martianwho’s Tulou土楼, a solarpunk brick layer game.

  • Playfrog’s Bub, a stop-motion adventure made with slashes of ink and paint.

  • And Then We Go Party At The Shore, a surreal exploration game of stitched forests and felted landscapes.

  • J-King Spooner and Talha Kaya’s ABIDE, a first-person horror game of handcrafted dolls and prosthetic gore effects. Highly recommend Talha & Jack’s previous (claymation) games Judero and Mashina.

  • Bernadine Mattson’s Doo-Da, an adventure game made entirely from collaging random books and magazines found in the trash.

• Elizabeth Lovatt’s Thank you for Calling the Lesbian Line: “a beautiful, funny, fascinating mix of memoir, documentary, fiction and cultural criticism about everyday queer lives, based on the archives of one of the UK’s earliest lesbian helplines.”

• There’s making games in PowerPoint, but have you considered making PowerPoint in games? The artist duo 2girls1comp present “PowerPoint for GTA V”, which converts Grand Theft Auto V into presentation software.

• George Wylesol’s 2120 is a mind-bending graphic novel / choose-your-own pick-your-path adventure hybrid.

• Tonight we Riot: “unapologetically political, socialist game about worker liberation in the face of overpowering capitalism.”

• “The Free Books! presentation reminded me of the game Unpacking.”

• The folks at Sherlocked have also just launched an outdoor escape room in Amsterdam: Atlantis Protocol.

Until the 23rd of August.
Happy summer everyone!

[uge]