The best indie games of Copenhagen Gaming Week

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A few weeks ago, we wrote about the most interesting student games from the TAGS 2025 showcase at Copenhagen Gaming Week. However, it wasn't just the students who showed off their games to the many guests. Several professional developers had also brought their latest projects, some of which are already out, while others are still some way from launch.

To sum up everything on display would be almost impossible. In short, the variety was astounding. Attendees had the chance to fight dinosaurs, duel in distant corners of the galaxy, sail the high seas, or engage in backyard skirmishes in a suburban neighbourhood. Some games were complicated and had a multitude of mechanics, while others embraced simplicity - one game even used just a single button.

As the event also offered entertainment, competitions, and much more, the battle for the audience's attention was obviously fierce. Still, a few games managed to stand out more than others, and those are the ones we're highlighting here.

Settle the Score

There was something for gamers of all ages at Copenhagen Gaming Week, but a quick glance revealed that the audience consisted mainly of school-aged children with their parents - more or less willingly - in tow. Many of the children had probably come to snap a picture with their favourite YouTuber, buy Pokémon cards, or watch the big stage show. But some of the young gamers had also found their way to TAGS, and Settle the Score from the small start-up studio Hex Two quickly proved to be one of their favourites.

We have no reload, and no aim down sights. Standing still only puts you in more danger.

The game's intense, non-stop action, and cartoony universe clearly appeals to a generation raised on Fortnite and Overwatch. Whether it will also appeal to their parents is another question entirely. Settle The Score is a brutal game - inspired by films such as John Wick and Kill Bill - and it's all about mowing down enemies in a fast and creative manner. However, the major source of inspiration comes, not from the world of film, but from a classic game series, reveals studio founder Kim Charlney.

"The new Doom has found a great recipe for how to always keep players in motion. We want to do the same in our game, therefore we have no reload, and no aim down sights. Standing still only puts you in more danger. For example, the way you gain life and new weapons is by doing takedowns just like in Doom. Since there's no reload, you have to make sure you always have enough ammo ready to mow down the enemies."

Kim Charnley has had an unconventional way into the games industry. When not developing Settle the Score, he works at Unity as a UX/UI designer. However, he has no background in either gaming or programming. Instead, he comes from the fashion industry, and among the many hoodies and wrinkled shirts at Copenhagen Gaming Week, he stands out with his clean, freshly ironed suit. "When I started at Unity, I realised that I needed to have a greater insight into the customer. I had to become the customer so to speak. That's why I learnt to use Unity and learned how to make games," he explains.

His unique background is also reflected in Settle the Score. For example, the vast majority of the game's assets come from the Unity Asset Store. This may sound a bit soulless, but to draw a parallel to the world of fashion, it's more about how you wear your clothes than whether you've sewn or knitted it yourself.

The style of the game is unmistakable. With its dark, muted colour palette and dimly lit corridors, the game exudes a slim elegance. It's almost like a model strolling down a catwalk - beautiful and seductive, but perhaps also a bit too skinny? "A lot of the response we've had so far is that people want more. More UI, more of the texts that pop up on the screen, more lighting, more neon, more 80s, more of everything," says Charlney.

As it stands, Hex Two has plenty of time to add lots of new content to Settle the Score, as the game is still in pre-alpha. It will probably be a while before we hear more about the project, so who knows? Maybe the young fans who got a taste of the game at Copenhagen Game Week will actually be old enough to play it when it's eventually released.

Void Crew

The ambitious space game Void Crew has already achieved considerable success on Steam since its launch back in November, but it's not necessarily the type of game that does well at conferences and showcases. After all, these occasions are all about getting the player aboard from the very first second, which makes deep and complex mechanics something of a hindrance. Whether this was the reason is unknown, but developer Hutlihut Games had sent a number of experienced "chief pilots" to the showcase in order to help inexperienced players. One of them was lead game designer Laurids Binderup, and before we headed for the stars, he briefly explained what Void Crew is all about.

"The game is basically a mix of FTL: Faster Than Light and Sea of Thieves, but without the PvP element. When you have a good session in Sea of Thieves, a group of 12-year-olds who are much better than you, might appear out of nowhere and ruin the fun. We've also tried to add the element of chaos from FTL. In that game, you're the underdogs, but if you work together, you can do things that you wouldn't be able to achieve on your own."

Void Crew can be played alone or with up to three other players, and it always begins on the same space station, which acts as an interactive lobby. Here you can hang with your fellow players and select your next mission. When you are ready, you are then beamed to your spaceship thanks to a resource called biomass that is used for printing a clone onboard the ship. This way, you can easily reach the furthest corners of the galaxy.

In true Balatro fashion, you can create synergies that are out of this world... You can make something that is very, very broken, but broken in a good way.

Originally, the idea was for players to be able to travel freely throughout the galaxy, explains Binderup. "We had an idea of a much larger galaxy map, where you sat and planned a route through it, just like in FTL. But we ended up embracing the fact that you're in a limited arena and then moves on to the next after a mission - it made you get to the action much faster. We released the day after Starfield. So the fact that we had no downtime helped us stand out from this other massive space game."

After we get on the ship, we're ready for battle. Well, sort of. There is still a lot to do before we can even begin to pilot the ship. First, the ship's generator must be switched on. Until then, neither weapons nor navigation work, and there isn't even gravity on board.

Binderup compares the ship to an "RPG paperdoll," a kind of equipment screen where you can choose weapons, armour, and so on. However, in Void Crew you physically move around the ship and install the modules in real time. It's important not to install too many or too powerful modules in the heat of battle; else the power will switch off and you'll be stuck like a defenceless tin can in the cold, hostile space. By completing missions, you gain access to new and more powerful modules, and thanks to the rogue-like structure, you can end up building a spaceship that makes the Millennium Falcon look like Yuri Gagarin's rocket.

"In true Balatro fashion, you can create synergies that are out of this world," explains Binderup. "In our 1.0 version, we have seen examples of ships that are practically invulnerable. In return, you don't deal as much damage. The other way round, you can do builds where you deal millions of damage where we normally talk thousands. You can make something that is very, very broken, but broken in a good way."

With all systems up and running, I settle into the cockpit while Binderup mans one of the turrets. You can't control every aspect yourself, so cooperation and coordination across roles is incredibly important. For example, the Engineer is the best at changing batteries and operating consoles, while a Gunner excels with weapons in their hands.

If you can't fill the crew to max capacity, you can choose to install autonomous modules that handle some of the tasks themselves. But otherwise, you have to physically move to the ship's various weapons and consoles to operate them, which really makes the ship come alive. You can even choose to move outside its safe metal framework, which is especially useful for the Scavenger class, as it comes armed with a grappling hook. "Some pretty clutch moments can occur where you call your pilot, that opens the airlock, and then you shoot your way in with the grappling hook at the last second. Those are the moments where Void Crew shines the most," explains Binderup.

Our session was not that dramatic, but there were still plenty of action along the way. With our ammo-hungry miniguns, we turn four spy satellites into space debris, and with a horde of enemy ships on our tail, we finally make a Star Wars-inspired void jump and escape unscathed.

It all went well, but of course not everyone is lucky enough to get to play with the game's lead designer. Binderup admits that the game's in-game tutorials only teach you the bare essentials. Luckily, other players seem more than willing to help. A quick Google search reveals countless guides in both text and video form, and the game's subreddit is overflowing with tips for new players. It may not be the most modern design, but it's undoubtedly fitting for a game that, despite the non-existent atmosphere in space, breathes dedication and co-operation through every oxygen tank.

One Btn Bosses

And now for something completely different. While Void Crew probably had more buttons and internal systems than a real spaceship, One Btn Bosses is controlled with just a single button. Press the button and your little spaceship changes direction which allows you to avoid enemy attacks. Everything else is automatic. Your spaceship circles around the dangerous bosses and fires its projectiles on its own.

Although you only have one button, One Btn Bosses is certainly no button masher. Quite the opposite. Every time you press the button, the speed of both your spaceship and your projectiles slow down. However, the same also applies if you take damage, so it's all about using the button as little as possible without getting hit to achieve the best possible score. This results in an addictive gameplay loop where you are constantly balancing on the edge of disaster and always dodging at the very last millisecond.

One Btn Bosses is developed by Midnight Munchies, a small start-up studio consisting of Brin Žvan, Jonas Gohn, and Fernando Rodríguez. The trio met at the Games Master's programme at the IT University of Copenhagen, where they studied together from 2020, and it was here that the game was born during a game jam. "At the time it was a very rudimentary idea, where it was basically a circle with a triangle. But we had the core concept of, you are always moving, you are always shooting, and if you press the button, you move slower," Žvan explains.

Later, the developers added new ideas, such as more varied weapons and other optional ways to move. In the full version of the game, you can not only reverse the course of the spaceship, but also teleport or briefly slow down. However, Midnight Munchies themselves has clearly never pressed the pause button, and since their study days, things have really taken off. A release on the user-driven entertainment site Newgrounds and the indie platform itch.io attracted a lot of attention, especially from a Chinese company. This led to the game being released commercially in China before it finally hit Steam in the summer of 2024 thanks to funding from Outersloth, the Among Us developer Innersloth's new publishing arm.

We once held a competition where a player set an insane score. We were like, "this can't be real." So we asked him to send us a replay.

Next stop on their journey is a handheld version for Nintendo Switch and mobile devices, where the game with its simple console seems like an obvious match. "It's kind of a leap of faith. One day we are making prototypes, the next we are talking to PR agents, looking at marketing and all that stuff. You just have to nosedive into it, and hope for the best," Žvan tells about the many new challenges they've faced running a studio.

Besides the many practical considerations, one of the most difficult things has been to, well, customise the game's difficulty level. "Since we are a small team, we didn't have too much money for getting more QR testers aboard. So we had to do everything ourselves, and you kind of get blind to the difficulty after a while. For me personally I can do all the levels without falling because I've played so much," explains Žvan.

However, the developers can still be surprised by how other players complete the levels and just how high a score it is possible to achieve. "We once held a competition where a player set an insane score. We were like, 'this can't be real.' So we asked him to send us a replay. He then us the replay, and the way he played was something we hadn't anticipated. It was crazy, because he was so perfect. He basically dodged everything, by clicking at just the right frames. This goes to show there is a lot of optimisation in how you play the game."

Worry not. As a casual player, you can still enjoy One Btn Bosses. For Midnight Munchies, it's been a clear priority that the learning curve is smooth, and a level can always be completed, regardless of your selected weapon type or movement pattern. However, some levels favour specific approaches, which is a big part of the game's metagame, as are the many minor upgrades you can choose between each level as part of its rogue-lite structure.

While One Btn is clearly "gameplay-first," it's also quite an audiovisual trip with its pulsating geometric shapes and bright, vibrant colours. You feel like you're playing on an arcade cabinet in the middle of a psychedelic nightclub, and the effect is almost euphoric. According to Žvan, the trick - as with other aspects of the game - is to make the most of the sparse resources.

"In modern gaming there is a lot of fancy graphics, but it also costs a lot of money. We are a team of one designer, so we decided to have a really basic foundation and just build on that. It's all triangles, shapes and lines, splashes, explosions, but we can do a lot with that. We also decided for artistic reasons to only have a couple of colours in each stage, but the game is still very colourful, because we have a palette system, where all the colours change."

As mentioned, One Btn Bosses is already out on Steam. If you'd rather experience the game on Nintendo Switch or mobile, you don't have to wait long, as the handheld version is set to release on March 13.