Hey everyone,

I’m still trying to process this. By day, I’m a software developer working on completely different things (not games). But in my free time, I poured my heart into creating "The Macabre Journey", a solo-developed gothic 3D adventure. It’s a small premium game, and I launched it as a pure passion project.

Today, I found out it actually made the official finalist list for "Game of the Year" at the Mobile Games Awards 2026.

I am literally competing side-by-side with multi-million dollar studios and massive corporate IPs.

Here is the catch: the voting phase is open right now, but it's restricted to "industry peers and professionals" (they require a professional/company email to validate the vote and prevent spam). Since I don't work in the gaming industry, I don't have a network of game devs or a PR team to back me up.

If there are any fellow developers, engineers, or industry pros here who appreciate a solo dev project fighting against the giants, I would be incredibly grateful for your vote.

You can cast your vote here for Game of the Year:
https://www.pocketgamer.biz/mga2026/vote/game-of-the-year/

Even if you don't vote, thank you for reading. Just seeing my tiny game's name on that list next to the giants is already a win I’ll never forget.

Hi everyone, I’ve made my own version of that game that has 1,000 clones – I’ve left the link below. Mine turned out to be the best :) but I reckon it’s also the one with the fewest downloads :))
If you want to boost my player count from 50 to 51, here is the link:

Google Play Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tunaris.game

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pauloondra.zerostressking

A short relaxing incremental game disguised as a tower defense, but enemies can’t reach your walls. Thanks to lava.
This is a port from my PC game, so no in-app tricks, no internet required.

Hey everyone,

I want to share a critical technical conflict I recently experienced between Android's Work Profile environment (specifically using the "Island" app (Creating a Work Profile) and the game "Reckless Getaway 2". If you value your progress, avoid setting up a virtual work profile on the same device where you play this game.

The Problem: After setting up an isolated environment in Island on Android 15, attempts to play the game were doomed to end up on an endless loading screen, even though I didn't clone the game into working profile.

The final result of attempting to fix it without losing progress: After spending some time on fixing it (it was so complicated (using Island + Inure + Shizuku) that I don't think describing it is important here, since it didn't really help much): every time I closed the app and logged back in, the local progress got completely wiped, automatically reverting and forcing a rollback to an older cloud-saved state, and every few clicks the game was freezing for minutes.

The Cause: The game uses legacy Google Play Games authentication methods that severely conflict with modern Android Enterprise virtual architectures. The game gets stuck in an infinite loop trying to validate server-side tokens across the divided system spaces, resulting in complete instability.

The "Fix" (This will wipe your progress): Turning off the work profile or stopping Shizuku does not fix the underlying synchronization error once the cloud file is corrupted. The only way to make the game playable again on your main Google account is a complete data wipe.

If you are already trapped in this, here is the exact sequence to fix the game functionality:

1. Destroy the Island: Open the Island app -> Settings -> "Destroy Island". Then completely uninstall Island and stop Shizuku. Verify under Android "Settings -> Accounts" that the "Work Profile" is completely gone.
2. "Purge the Cloud Data:" Open the separate "Google Play Games" app -> Profile (bottom right) -> Three dots (top right) -> Settings. Scroll down to "Your data" and select "Delete Play Games account & data". Find "Reckless Getaway 2" and hit "Delete". This completely destroys the corrupted cloud save that causes the game freeze.
3. Clear Local Cache: Go to Android "Settings"-> "Apps" -> "Reckless Getaway 2" -> "Storage" and click "Clear Data/Storage".
4. Clean Restart: Reboot your phone.

The game now runs perfectly smooth without any lag, but the price was losing the entire game progress just to make the account compatible with the game servers again.

Hi everyone!

I'm an indie developer and I've just released Pocket Gal, a retro arcade-style pool game inspired by the classic arcade billiards games I grew up playing.

My goal was to recreate the fast-paced gameplay and simple mechanics of the arcade experience while adapting it for modern mobile devices.

Features:

• 🎱 Classic arcade-style pool gameplay
• 👤 Four unique opponents with increasing difficulty
• 🏆 Score-based progression
• 📱 Available on iOS and Android

I'd love to hear your feedback on the gameplay, controls, difficulty, or anything else you think could be improved.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/pocket-gal/id6739984774

Thanks for checking it out!

Hi! I’m Jasper, a solo game developer and student. Over the past year and a half I’ve been working on a mining roguelite called Voidloop!.

The idea started from really enjoying the caves in Stardew Valley and wondering what it would be like if that mining loop was expanded into its own incremental/roguelite with upgrades, skill trees and more cave variety.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/voidloop/id6746944662

Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.IndieGameStudio.Voidloop

Note: It isn't available for App Store in the EU for a few days because i kinda messed up the launch