With Kaizen Game Works taking the biggest cash prize for Promise Mascot Agency and YCJY the Grand Jury Prize for Keep Driving, DevGamm Awards 2025 in Lisbon turned out to be an indie star fest. One award went to Austria for Crowded by Nestwork Games. Despelote and Drop Duchy also won big.
At yesterday’s DevGamm Awards 2025 in Lisbon, the biggest prize pool of any DevGamm so far had been awarded. The money comes exclusively from private sponsors: 100,000 dollars by Scorewarrior and 35,000 dollars in additional categories through Epic Games, tinyBuild, Aptoide and Astra Logical. Presented by Anton Shashura, Head of Marketing at DevGamm, developers from all over the world had been nominated.
From a vast array of developers nominated from the GSA region such as Soft Boiled Games, Pipapo Games, Tiny Roar and more, only one could reach an award: Nestwork Games from Vienna, Austria has won the Best System & Strategy Game Award by Astra Logical. And the region was well-represented in the presenters, with Philipp Döschl of FDG Entertainment giving away Most Anticipated Game and presented by André Sousa of Giant Software presenting the Excellence in Audio Award.
The selection was nevertheless full of highlights, with Kaizen Game Works from the UK taking home the biggest cash prize for their remarkable Promise Mascot Agency, 25,000 dollars in the Epic Games Indie Spotlight, including a promotion on Epic’s store site.
The main jury award went to another absolute indie darling: Keep Driving by YCJY from Sweden, described as a “modern Oregon Trail” and one of the indie game of the year contenders of 2025 for many game outlets.
Other remarkable winners include Glasshouse, an anti-fascist “Disco Elysium-like” from Italian collective Flat28, taking home the Developers Choice Award chosen by all nominees through vote, as well as despelote, the Ecuadorian autobiographical football game made by Julián Cordero and Sebastian Valbuena, received on stage by Cordero’s cousin.
