PAX Unplugged’s 2025 Indie Games Night Market

After hours of browsing the hottest new games, ogling displays of trinkets and dice, demoing upcoming releases, or even just playing with friends both new and old, many convention-goers are eager to either get some sleep or search for dinner. But for those willing to stay just a bit after the Expo Hall closes, PAX Unplugged offers something you really can’t find anywhere else. The Indie Games Night Market is an event organized by New Mill Industries, where attendees can check out games that won’t ever see a broad release, and possibly won’t appear beyond the Market at all. Once the doors to the hall (re)opened, people began lining up for each of the 30 tables to meet the designers and learn about their games.

The physical copies of these games were hand-made in small print runs, typically about 100 copies. I spoke to creators who had spent hours screen-printing the art onto tiles or hand-dying wooden tokens to create their offerings, lending each one an incredibly authentic and personal feel. This was the second year for the Indie Games Night Market, but while some of the creators displayed games they’d shown off previously, all 30 of the featured games were experiencing their public debut that night.

The event listing on the PAX website indicated that potential purchasers didn’t need to rush and were free to show up closer to closing time at 10 pm, but despite being there at the start of the event, several games sold out fairly quickly! Most notably of these (by which I mean, the games that were gone by the time I got there) were Flip Stack Burger Shack—a simple game about planning and manipulating burgers for customer orders—and The Gray King—a cooperative prequel to Chess, where one player will backstab the others.

Two that especially stood out to me (and that I was actually able to get copies of) were Imps and Beastro. Imps expands upon the basic mancala mechanic by adding special units and allowing players to grab from any pit and move in either direction. Imps also features a striking bright orange and pale gray palette that looks quite nice on the table. Beastro is a trick-taking game where two teams compete to win the most tricks, but the teams may change each round, and one member of the larger team of Line Cooks is secretly working with the Head Chef. I spoke with one of the designers and found out that his sister drew the charming art, which really sells the game. Beastro is the only one of my purchases I’ve been able to play so far, and it’s definitely a keeper. I would highly encourage anyone to give Beastro a try if more copies are ever made or if a Print-and-Play becomes available.

As I mentioned earlier, this is only the second ever Indie Games Night Market, but I sincerely hope that it becomes a staple of PAX Unplugged. Even if the small-scale, at-cost print runs aren’t the most lucrative endeavor, I love getting to see what people can come up with when given the freedom to create. From arranging ducks in a bathtub to card games based on surrealist paintings, the indie scene is always worth celebrating, and no other convention does it quite like PAXU.