🌟 WHOLESOME DIRECT 2025 🌟 DELIVERED ITS BIGGEST SHOWCASE YET WITH SURPRISES A-PLENTY

WINSTON-SALEM, JUNE 7, 2025 - Wholesome Games, the independent curation platform and publisher, just wrapped up its beloved annual Wholesome Direct digital showcase.

Aired on the Wholesome Games YouTube and Twitch channels as part of Summer Games Fest, audiences worldwide received a delightful selection of exclusives including Wholesome Games Presents news, world premieres, demo announcements, and many more surprises from independent studios of all sizes and beloved indie publishers.

Wholesome Direct 2025 marks the showcase's five year anniversary. Since 2020, Wholesome Direct has showcased over 375 titles, inspiring over 1 million wishlist additions. It has also raised over $200,000 for charities including Save the Children, AbleGamers, Palestine Children's Relief Fund, and the International Rescue Committee. 

This year, Wholesome Direct merch sales will go towards charity partner Point of Pride, an independent non-profit organization dedicated to supporting and saving trans lives through access to gender affirming care.

• Fishbowl - Developed by imissmyfriends.studio
  • Announced as part of the Wholesome Games Presents publishing initiative, Fishbowl is a heartfelt coming of age story told over a month where you unpack puzzles to rediscover childhood memories, video call loved ones, and work from home while balancing self care and chores, to figure out life one day at a time. Twenty-one year old Alo gets her first job in a new city and is living by herself while grieving her grandma’s death, the choices she makes each day will lead to a unique journey of self discovery.
• Is This Seat Taken? - Developed by Poti Poti Studio
  • Is This Seat Taken? is a logic puzzle game where you play matchmaker for groups of hilariously particular people. Each character has pet peeves that make seating them a delightful challenge. Find the perfect spot for each person to unlock new levels in this cozy, silly, and relatable experience.
  • Is This Seat Taken? releases in August 2025.
• MakeRoom - Developed by Kenney
  • In MakeRoom you can create cozy dioramas! Will you create a compact kitchen, a comfortable living room, or a camper van? Use over 1,000 objects or design your own and arrange them exactly as you'd like, then share a photo with family and friends! Create your own furniture pieces, and fulfill design requests like a cozy room for cats, a moody hideaway for a vampire, and more!
  • MakeRoom releases August 7, 2025 on Steam.

• Gourdlets Together - Developed by Aunty Games, published by Future Friends Games 
  • Welcome to Gourdlets Together, a relaxing building and fishing game set in the world of Gourdlets. Design your own island in an adorable, colorful world inhabited by cute little vegetable folks, and level up your fishing skills, all while you hang out and chat with friends online! Spend your fishing earnings on new buildings, items, upgrades and accessories, and make your island feel like home. Visit your friends’ islands, get inspired by their creations, and enjoy gourd vibes together!
• Heidi’s Legacy: Mountains Calling - Developed by Humble Reeds
  • Heidi’s Legacy is an exploration and management game, with strong narrative content around breathing life back into a mountain village, inspired by the iconic Heidi novels.
• Milano's Odd Job Collection - Developed by Westone, published by XSEED Games and emulator porting done by Implicit Conversions
  • 11-year-old Milano is on her own for the summer, and she’s determined to make it work by taking up part-time jobs, shopping for cool stuff, and having fun. Whether delivering pizzas, baking cakes, or milking flying cows, Milano will do whatever it takes. With nostalgic pixel art and animations, mixed with cozy Japanese cuteness, the charming retro classic Milano’s Odd Job Collection makes its way to the west for the first time!
• On-Together - Developed by GigaPuff, published by Future Friends Games
  • On-Together is a cozy multiplayer productivity game that lives at the bottom of your screen -- meet with your friends for focused work and study sessions or make the most out of your breaks with fun activities and mini games. Shoot hoops, chill at the café, or join a spontaneous fishing tournament between tasks - it's the perfect wind down (and task manager!) for long days at your desk.

• Camper Van: Make it Home - Developed by Malapata Studio, published by Wings
  • Decorate and organize the camper van of your dreams! Embark on a journey of self-discovery as you build your own home-on-wheels, using a combination of creative block organization puzzles and relaxing interior design. Make your heart feel at ease and your camper van feel like home.
  • Now out on Steam!
• Fireside Feelings - Developed by Team Empreintes, published by The CoLab
  • Share your thoughts and discover those shared by others, in Fireside Feelings. Create and embody a cute character, craft your cosiest safe place, and gather around the welcoming warmth of the campfire to become a part of a collective story. Sometimes, we all need a good talk under the stars.
  • Now out on Steam!
• Instants - Developed by Endflame
  • A heartwarming journey through time. Assemble a chronological puzzle of family photos and arrange them into albums to uncover a touching family story! Unleash your creativity and decorate the albums with multiple scrapbooking tools! Inspired by the way elders pass down family history using pictures to support their storytelling, this game blends narrative, puzzle and creativity.
  • Now out on Steam, Epic Games Store, and Nintendo Switch!
• Omelet You Cook - Developed by SchuBox Games
  • Omelet You Cook is a wholesome roguelike cooking game where you make omelets for the quirky students and faculty of Middlesville Central Cafeteria. Grab ingredients off the conveyor belt, compose the perfect omelet, and earn money to add new ingredients and relics to your pantry between rounds. Be warned, Principal Clucker will evaluate your performance at the end of the day. Will you meet their ever-growing demands and live to work another day?
  • Now out on Steam!
• Out and About - Developed by Yaldi Games
  • Out and About is a cozy foraging adventure about the magic of real-life plants! Identify and gather wild plants and fungi, cook tasty recipes, master herbal remedies, and rebuild your community after a devastating storm.
  • Playtest is live now!
• Seasonala Cemetery - Developed by Gabby DaRienzo, Kait Tremblay, Jen Costa, Nina Wong, halina heron, Mobeen Fikree, and Jacquelin de Leon
  • From the creators of A Mortician's Tale, Seasonala Cemetery is a meditative experience that invites players to explore the serene beauty of a living, breathing cemetery. Using your system’s real date and time, the game changes dynamically – visit in the summer to see the cemetery bustling with life, or explore in the quiet, snowy winter. Observe and interact with NPCs and animals as they visit Seasonala Cemetery, all while listening to ambient sounds recorded from a real-life cemetery. The game is completely free.
  • Now out on Steam and itch.io!
• Squeakross: Home Squeak Home - Developed by Alblune
  • In Squeakross: Home Squeak Home, solve and transform puzzles into furniture to decorate the perfect home for your rodent friend. Collect hundreds of decorations, accessories and stickers in this cozy game full of charm!
  • Now out on Steam, itch.io, and Nintendo Switch!
• The Guardian of Nature - Developed by Inlusio Interactive
  • The Guardian of Nature is a wholesome puzzle adventure game about the interconnectedness of nature, created in a wonderful hand-drawn and hand-animation style. Players embark on a magical journey with botanist Henry, use his size-changing ability to explore nature above and below ground, in big and in small and solve solarpunk puzzles to put nature back in order.
  • Episode one is out now out on PC (Steam, itch.io), Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, iOS / App Store / Apple Arcade, and Google Play / Android!
• Vending Dokan!: Cozy Kiosk - Developed by Aftabi Games
  • Immerse yourself in Vending Dokan!: Kozy Kiosk, a charming idle simulation game for creating and managing your very own vending machine empire. With soothing music and a laid-back vibe, whether you're actively managing every detail or letting your business thrive passively, Vending Dokan! is designed for cozy gaming at your own pace.
  • Now out on Steam!

• Discounty coming August 21 to PC (Steam, Epic Games Store) Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4 & 5, Xbox Series X, GOG, with a demo out now - Developed by Crinkle Cut Games, published by PQube
  • Manage your own supermarket in the ramshackle town of Blomkest. Organize and decorate your store, check customers out, and befriend the quirky locals while growing your business empire. But be warned: in this cozy life sim, selling frozen french fries isn’t going to heal the community.
• Everdeep Aurora coming July 10 to Steam and Nintendo Switch, with a demo out in Steam Next Fest - Developed by Nautilus Games, published by Ysbryd Games
  • In Everdeep Aurora, players take the role of Shell, an adorable kitten who uses a drill to dig through subterranean depths in search of her mother. In this video, we exclusively reveal the game's release date of July 10, and encourage viewers to check out the game's demo at Steam Next Fest. Players can look forward to an enchanting 2D world free of combat, and to delving into the planet's dark secrets buried between rocks and hardened hearts.
• Hotel Galactic coming July 24 to Steam, consoles launch to be announced - Developed by Ancient Forge
  • Hotel Galactic combines cozy management with a heartfelt tale. Build and decorate your dream tourist getaway, aid Gustav in his search for redemption, and explore a nostalgic world where bonds with creatures and serene gardens sustain a thriving colony.
• ISLANDERS: New Shores coming July 10 to Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X - Developed by The Station, published by Coatsink
  • Explore tectonic volcanic peaks, to serene fantastical coves. New Shores keeps the charm of the original relaxing minimalist city builder, and expands the beloved gameplay with new features.
• Monument Valley 3 coming July 22 to Steam, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X - Developed by  ustwo games
  • Restore the fading light of a world on the brink of destruction in the latest instalment of the multi-award winning Monument Valley series. From serene temples to crumbling ruins, explore hand-crafted environments bursting with colour, emotion, and atmosphere.
• The Berlin Apartment coming November 2025 to Steam, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X - Developed by btf GmbH, published by ByteRockers´ Games
  • A handyman is tasked with refurbishing an old apartment in the city of Berlin, Germany. In the course of his extensive renovation work, he digs deeper and deeper into the history of the apartment. Relics from past times turn out to be silent witnesses – and former companions – of the apartment's previous inhabitants. With each new find, he tells his daughter the story behind this trace of a past adventure—with its own protagonists, in its own genre, with a very different atmosphere, but always set in the same four walls.

• Little Kitty, Big City - Developed by Double Dagger Studio
  • A new, free content update is coming to Little Kitty, Big City this summer 2025 on all available platforms. The update will include a cat customization feature, hours of new delightful story content, quirky new characters to meet, and a whole new area of the neighborhood to explore.
• Luma Island - Developed by Feel Free Games
  • Free major update, Luma Island: Pirates, launches June 20, 2025. It adds a new profession, new Lumas, new outfits and a pirate cove filled with mini-games, temples, traps, and treasures. Cozy, Adventure & Hero modes make the adventure accessible for all types of players

• All Will Rise - Developed by Speculative Agency
  • Play as Kuyili and manage her quarrelling team in a city of godmen and ecoterrorists, conspiracy theorists and hacker seeresses. All Will Rise is a narrative courtroom deck-builder. Follow leads, find allies and build your deck.
• Ambroise Niflette & the Gleaned Bell - Developed by Topotes Studio
  • Ambroise, a renowned detective, is called to solve the mystery that's thrown the village of Touvoir into disarray: the theft of the apple bell. In this 3D investigation game, inspired by miniatures and stop-motion, the player must gather information by conversing with the villagers, roam Touvoir to find its secrets, use their notebooks to reveal contradictions, and finally unmask the culprit and find the bell!
• Crescent County - Developed by Electric Saint
  • Crash headfirst into this witch-tech open world, drifting and driving on the back of your new motorbroom. Make deliveries, trick out your broom, and race your new friends/crushes as the sun sets. Crescent County is a single player delivery adventure, set on a painterly, solarpunk island. It's a heartfelt game about kissing, drifting, and being a mess in your 20s, set to vibey lofi and crunchy alt-rock.
• Pawsta - Developed by Cold Sector
  • Pawsta is a cozy cooking game with playful claymation-style graphics. It stars Rigatoni, the mouse, as he travels the world over mastering cuisines, collecting mice-alin stars, and.. err.. well, meeping! Originally, Pawsta debuted as a Wholesome Game Jam 24 project, which was worked on by a completely international group of cozy enthusiasts who all met on the Wholesome Games Discord!

About Wholesome Games

Wholesome Games is a community that started on Twitter in 2019 when indie game developer Matthew Taylor began curating games according to their feelings of comfort, compassion, and coziness. Since then, the community has grown to nearly 500k members across Twitter, Discord, TikTok, YouTube, and more. Wholesome Games Presents is the platform’s publishing initiative, giving support and opportunities to indie titles including Usagi Shima, Minami Lane, MakeRoom, Is This Seat Taken?, and Fishbowl. For more information, please visit www.wholesomegames.com.