gonna reshare my big HORSES interview that not enough people read since the game won the Nuovo Award at the IGF! vgbees.com/in-search-of...

Italian Horror Trilogy cover

To celebrate HORSES’ Nuovo Award win, we’ve launched a new Italian Horror Trilogy bundle featuring 2024 IGF Excellence in Narrative winner Mediterranea Inferno and 2022 IGF Grand Prize Honorable Mention Saturnalia, all for $15.99 for a limited time!

www.gog.com/en/game/ital...

Thank you so much to Santa Ragione and especially to Andrea for trusting me with the English script. And thank you to the Italian translation team at We Are Muesli for helping me navigate some of its unique, fascinating challenges. Thank you to the IGF Jury for seeing the beauty in the grotesque

Dajeeeeeee

HORSES won the IGF Nuovo Award. We’re profoundly grateful. To us, this recognition also speaks to a broader idea: that no gatekeeper should decide which games deserve to exist or what counts as art. Thank you to everyone who supported HORSES and helped carry it this far. PS: What a wonderful team!

Well, well, well. How the turn-stable...

IGF Awards 2026 - All the Winners and Finalists The unreleased Titanium Court won two awards, while other winners included Baby Steps, HORSES, and Perfect Tides: Station to Station, with Wednesdays winning the audience award.

Titanium Court by @apthomson.bsky.social has won the Seumas McNally Grand Prize at the 2026 IGF Awards.

It also won Excellence in Design, and Thomson was part of the team that won the Grand Prize in 2025 for Consume Me

Other winners include Baby Steps, HORSES, and Perfect Tides: Station to Station

Winner of the Nuovo Award – HORSES | Developer – Andrea Lucco Borlera | Publisher – Santa Ragione #IGF2026

Oeuf on Steam 3D physics-platformer where you are an egg! Roll, hop and slide your way back home.

store.steampowered.com/app/3831080/... Oeuf demo released! Enjoy! #OeufGame

If you are in Vancouver this Friday... luma.com/zjgatp6i

DESPELOTE: FIFTH TRAILER (now on nintendo switch) YouTube video by Panic

Prepping this week's episode on autobiographical games, and it really is criminal that Despelote hasn't reached more people. Not just because it's important. But because it's ridiculously fun and moving.

HORSES cover with IGF Laurels

HORSES was nominated for the Grand Prize and Nuovo Award at the 2026 Independent Games Festival! What a great opportunity to give shoutouts to the incredible talent that made this production possible. Check out the following posts to find out who they are, and what else they worked on! Thread:

Horses credits (Windows, 2025) - MobyGames The official game credits for Horses released on Windows in 2025. The credits include 166 people.

There are many more wonderful people that worked on HORSES! Find out more about the team and their work on www.mobygames.com/game/251019/..., currently the only hyperlinked source for game credits!

That black screen though…out of place

The Seumas McNally Grand Prize Nominees

Finally, the Seumas McNally Grand Prize nominees are:

Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, & Bennett Foddy's Baby Steps

Analgesic Productions's Angeline Era

YACHT, Telefantasy Studios, Noble Robot's Blippo+

Santa Ragione's HORSES

AP Thompson's Titanium Court

Three Bees' Perfect Tides: Station to Station

The first group of nominees for the IGF Nuovo Award.

The first group of Nuovo Award nominees are:

@gcuzzillo.bsky.social, @maxiboch.bsky.social, & @foddy.net's Baby Steps

YACHT, @telefantasytv.bsky.social, & @noblerobot.bsky.social's Blippo+

@santaragione.com's HORSES

@threemoreyears.bsky.social's Mini Mini Golf Golf

The following games have been chosen for Honorable Mentions for Excellence in Narrative:

YACHT, @telefantasytv.bsky.social, & @noblerobot.bsky.social's Blippo+

@santaragione.com's HORSES

@eviltrout.com's The Roottrees Are Dead

@alamodegames.bsky.social's Sorry We’re Closed

Baby Steps leads 28th annual IGF Awards nominations Blippo+, Titanium Court, and Horses have also received multiple nods.

Baby Steps leads 28th annual IGF Awards nominations

My game of the year for Italian communist newspaper Il Manifesto is Andrea Lucco Borlera and @santaragione.com's Horses. I also think that this kind of "emersive videogames" can be important in a revolutionary perspective and I hope to explore this topic further in the future.

The games industry brings in 300 billion dollars a year. The guy who made DOOM gets his projects canceled, the guy who made Katamari Damacy is broke, everyone in your feed is begging for a job and there are 50 new games coming out on Steam every day all going towards buying Gabe Newell's next yacht

Horses (Santa Ragione, 2025) | exp. magazine Get more from exp. magazine on Patreon

Subscribe today and get immediate access to my essay on Horses, but also get subscriber exclusives like my current posts on Christmas games: www.patreon.com/posts/christ... and older articles like my solution for A Bard's Tale! expzine.com/2025/02/20/h...

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That's like 10¢! But if you can't sub, please share!

In Search of a Mature Medium - VGBees Early in the latest game from acclaimed Italian developer Santa Ragione, you turn the corner and you see them: horses that aren’t horses. They are...

At the very edge of gaming's most commercially-charged evening, we bring you @midfalutin.bsky.social's interview with the embattled developers of Horses, a game conceived and executed as a corrective to the very nature of modern gaming.

vgbees.com/in-search-of...

I was disappointed to see the store page description put his name front and center while not mentioning any of the creators of the original games. This industry’s obsession with auteurs is not healthy.

That said, I hope the game will get a more nuanced label than “new Jon Blow game”. While the creative vision is his, he didn’t make any of the original games and there are a lot of talented people at Thekla who also deserve credit.

Mirror Isles:
alan.draknek.org/games/puzzle...

Skipping Stones to Lonely Homes:
alan.draknek.org/games/puzzle...

Promesst:
silverspaceship.com/promesst/
Promesst 2:
silverspaceship.com/promesst2/

Heroes of Sokoban:
sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puz...
Heroes of Sokoban II:
sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puz...
Heroes of Sokoban III:
sites.math.washington.edu/~ostroff/puz...

So, “Order of the Sinking Star” by Thekla was just announced, which takes several small free games (two of which are mine) and gives them a major graphical upgrade and mashes up their rulesets. I haven’t been very involved but it’s a great concept and looks cool.

Horses key art.

Horses screenshot.

A frame of Salò.

Has the discourse moved on yet? I hope not, because this is the best thing I've written this year. For supporters, I go deep on a comparison you will have heard a few times: On Horses, Salò, and Pasolini's "indigestible art." expzine.com/2025/12/09/h...

Patreon: www.patreon.com/posts/horses...