The Best Australian Games Of The Past Decade

Australia has an obsession with big things; The Big Banana, Big Mango, The Giant Koala, and my personal favourite, Big Boxing Crocodile. But when it comes to our video games industry it’s often the smaller independent studios that put us on the map – reminding the world Australia exists

This year is huge for Australian games; Melbourne International Games Week (MIGW) and Parallels will celebrate their 10-year anniversaries. The most emblematic of our scene is Freeplay, the longest-running independent games organisation in the world, which is celebrating 20 years of creating events and spaces, such as Parallels, which have helped the wonderfully unique culture of our independent scene thrive.

In the spirit of all this celebration we’ve curated a list of the biggest Australian games of the last decade, formulated on the successes, innovations, and cultural impacts these games have created for players and Australian industry veterans.

2014: Crossy Road

Speaking of big birthdays, the team at Hipster Whale will soon be celebrating their 10th year of Crossy Road, one of the largest Aussie mobile releases which continues the legacy of Halfbrick Studios’ Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride.

For those who maybe didn’t own a game-capable phone in 2014, Crossy Road is a simple premise based on an ancient joke; with basic controls the player must get Chicken across a busy road while collecting coins and avoiding the metaphorical getting to the other side.

Marketing Manager Katie Roots believes this mix of accessible controls and straightforward objectives forms a large part of its success: “It’s really easy to pick up and play. It still requires a measure of skill but doesn’t require you to be an expert, I think that’s why it’s such a classic game.”

After the great market crash, many triple-A studios closed down, meaning countless skilled developers made the most of self-publishing platforms, alongside accessible tools like Unity. Combined with the freedom of app store publication and the new free-to-play business model, creators Andy and Matt developed Crossy Road in just twelve weeks.

Since its initial release the team has worked on expansions and crossovers such as Crossy Road+, Disney Crossy Roads and more recently Crossy Road Castle, a co-op platformer. The team continues to add interesting level mechanics and special characters, like Roots’ favourite, Unihorse, who despite her team’s disapproval, she would have liked to make the main character of the game because they have “a special place in [her] heart.”

The team has also worked hard on developing the game across platforms such as console, virtual reality, and most excitingly, arcade machines. I asked Roots what it felt like to see the game immortalised in this way:

“Developers don’t often get the chance to see their game in a physical world setting. People actually want to walk up to and engage with it in a way that you don’t really see when you’re just looking at numbers on a screen of how many people are playing. It’s really awesome to see because the game’s history has so much love for the retro, nostalgic, coin-up history of the genre, and we saw it come to life in this form that has a lot of legacy for the way the game is designed.”

Thankfully the team will get another chance to see these interactions at the upcoming Big Games Night Out, where players can compete by hopping on a custom controller to move Chicken (with the option of wearing a giant Chicken suit).

When asked what the success has felt like, Roots listed all the amazing ways fans have expressed their love; from making a working diorama of the game world, to going up to the team at conventions to show them the high score they have managed over 10 years of playing, and hearing some say Crossy Road is their childhood:

“We have a lot of fans that have grown up with the game in our community. A lot of the motivation for why we make games is that feeling of being on the couch with your brother and sister, turning on your game console and hearing that startup noise. When we hear stuff like that it means we’ve done our job really well.”

Roots has also been floored by how the game has been celebrated across the globe, making special mention of the collaboration with US sandwich chain Arby’s to produce toys, and seeing images of Chicken on Times Square billboards. Back home, the indie scene is something that continues to impress her, saying “There’s a really nice community spirit in Australian game development, and I do think it’s quite unique. Our indie game scene tends to be really innovative and high quality.”

Roots is shocked that many still don’t realise Crossy Roads is a Melbourne-made game. Hipster Whale is a large team in the Australian context, and she is quite proud to say that the majority of her team members are women and gender-queer people, which she says impacts the culture of the studio and of course the games themselves.

The studio’s biggest gripe? Players assuming Chicken is a male, probably because she is, as Roots describes, chaotic neutral: “That’s another misconception, Chicken is a hen. Everyone thinks Chicken is a boy and I’m like, hello? Have you ever met a chicken? They lay eggs!”

2015: Armello

There were many strong titles released this year; Hand of Fate, Satellite Reign, Hacknet. But by far the game that was most consistently referred to by industry veterans has been Armello.

Made by League of Geeks, Armello is described as “a grim fairy-tale board game come to life” where you enter into a classic fight to become the ruler of its lands. The game mixes elements of RPG, tactical card-playing, and of course table-top strategies.

While the game didn’t necessarily go global it still trucks along with seasonal updates and provided the much needed stability for the development team to work on their following titles Jumplight Odyssey and Solium Infernum. All the while the studio was able to contribute meaningfully to other local projects such as Paper Bark and Push Me Pull You.

Unfortunately, while their latest title definitely made waves, the team announced earlier this year they would have to go into an indefinite hiatus. They write: “With over 13 years under our belt as an entirely independent studio, and the economic situation in games being what it is right now, we have made the decision to put LoG into hibernation for the foreseeable future and take some extended time off.”

League of Geeks were a huge facet of the community here, which became even more apparent from the hundreds of people mourning their closure. Although the local industry is fairly robust no studio is immune to the current crises which are affecting video games across the board. Nevertheless, Armello is cemented in our history as part of a hopeful turn and a title which inspired many developers.

2016: Push Me Pull You

Push Me Pull You is a multiplayer game made by House House. Two players share a horrifying tube body and try to wrestle a ball away from their opponents, another set of two players sharing an equally horrifying tube body. Although the description sounds a little gross, and the game includes literal sounds of the long bodies squelching as they twist and turn, it also has the classic House House flat colour aesthetic and goofy and whimsical tone which always makes everything okay. It is described by the creators as “the best parts of co-op multiplayer with the worst parts of your last breakup.”

Honourable mentions from this year go to Screencheat by Samurai Punk and Don Bradman Cricket 17, which was apparently a great improvement on Don Bradman Cricket 14!

2017: Hollow Knight

In Hollow Knight you play an insect warrior exploring the depths of a fallen kingdom while battling bug creatures, unlocking abilities, and trying to put together pieces of lore about the disease that devastated the environment. The game is beloved for its 2D hand-drawn art style, tight combat system, challenging battles, and truly emotive soundtrack. All together these elements create a stunningly immersive atmosphere that fans have a cult-like admiration for.

A large facet of being a Hollow Knight fan is the constant anticipation for the release of its sequel, Silk Song, which was announced in 2019, more than five years ago. Every showcase and gaming event is another opportunity for Team Cherry to drop the release date…yet another reason to attend every single event of MIGW.

Australian players are quite protective of the game, not wanting to bug the creators too much about the always-upcoming sequel. Instead, we continue to celebrate Hollow Knight; just last year the Indie Symphony showcased a suite of orchestrated songs from its soundtrack, including a small taste from Silk Song.

2018: Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island

Imagine you are a frog, but also, a detective! Frog Detective 1: The Haunted Island by Worm Club is the first instalment in the perfect trilogy of frog detective games, followed by The Case of the Invisible Wizard and Corruption at Cowboy County. The collection is a reminder that games can just be fun and silly, and do not have to rely on complex mechanics, flashy animations, or deep emotional story arcs.

The creatures who populate the Frog Detective world are at times mysterious, hilarious, and endlessly charming. In The Haunted Island, you use your detective skills to uncover sinister, ghostly secrets by talking to characters like Lobster Larry, creating explosives, and using your magnifying glass to, well, not really do anything except make things slightly bigger. The game soundtrack is also composed by musician Dan Golding, with noir detective motifs that underscore its playful series of events.

While Frog Detective had a large cultural impact on game making, titles such as The Gardens Between and Paperbark also made their mark.

2019: Untitled Goose Game

This year we are celebrating yet another birthday with five years of Untitled Goose Game. The absolute hit by studio House House is all about being a naughty goose in the countryside, one of those impressively simple premises that make other game devs sigh why didn’t I think about that?

Famously, the idea for the game all started with a shared stock image of a goose between the developers. It then grew into a desire to play with stealth mechanics without the violence that is usually attached to them.

The game is seen as one of the first titles of a big trend of indie game successes in Australia, with Jini Maxwell agreeing that it was “definitely the beginning of a wave, a local indie boom.”

Maxwell is the curator of Honk! an ACMI exhibition which opened to the public recently and aims to celebrate the cultural legacy of Untitled Goose Game through behind-the-scene archives, placement in the history of slapstick comedy, and playful components such as sound effect buttons and flipbooks. Maxwell says “if it’s not a fun and silly show, then I really haven’t done my job!”

The exhibition makes a large celebration out of the comedic elements of the game, with Maxwell believing “the game is a work of comedy, it’s use of physical comedy tropes like slapstick is instantly and universally recognised.”

Jake Strasser, one of the creators of the game, has said in the past that the goose could never make so much mess that it couldn’t be cleaned up in an afternoon, and Maxwell believes this to be one of the key elements of its success. They remarked: “A key element of the game is that there is order, peace, and routine, and the goose comes along and disrupts this. The villagers try to restore the peace and it’s actually not hard for them to do, so you never feel bad that the goose has done something horrible.”

The game humour relies on the recognition that whether the goose is stealing things, honking, hiding in boxes, and even making children fall into puddles, the goose is simply naughty, rather than being outright evil. Maxwell insists “The goose is just a wild animal which is not actually going to hurt you.”

2020: Moving Out

2020 was a year that become pretty damn important for video games, particularly due to the pandemic-induced lockdowns which made games a borderline necessity for the times we were stuck in our homes. This is also why deciding on a top game for the year is difficult. While many may consider Umurangi Generation the most impressive of the year, there were also some lovely small games that helped a generation of people fall in love with Australian indies such as Florence, Under A Star Called Sun, and the iconically magpie-themed Swoopy Boi.

Yet Moving Out, developed by SMG Studio, had to be one of the best multiplayer games to come out at that time. Putting players in the role of movers the objective is to empty a house of its objects and furniture and pack it into the moving truck before time runs out. Couches are thrown into pools, windows are smashed by throwing microwaves through them. While it seems like complete chaos there are also rules to abide by; fragile objects must be treated with care, and everything has to be made to physically fit into the truck.

The game keeps escalating by adding obstacles like ghosts, rakes, and fire, and environments get harder to navigate. The experience of playing it with others involves a lot of yelling, cry-laughing, and virtually slapping them when they move something wrong – an experience that felt crucial in between lockdown breaks where moments of togetherness were few and far between.

2021: Unpacking

Oh boy, do I have a soft spot for Unpacking. The premise of the game is deceptively mundane; you unpack houses over the main character’s life, from childhood bedroom to first share house, to the home she shares with her wife. Yet the limitations are part of its charm, as some objects have their specific spots and a red outline will pop up if you are misplacing them.

With no dialogue or written story, one could reasonably conclude the playthrough to be straightforward. In actuality you learn a lot about the character from handling her things. It is a testament to the power of objects and how we create homes out of houses, something developers at Witch Beam were keen to communicate.

The unique isometric pixel-art style, subtle animations, and really intelligent sound design make the process a mostly meditative one, with some instances that are striking. The most resonant with players is when the character moves into her boyfriend’s apartment only to find that he has not freed up an incredible amount of space for her things. Red outline after red outline you end up shoving her precious belongings into nooks and corners, disappearing amongst the boyfriend’s possessions. It culminates in trying to hang up an important item, which I will not spoil only so that it may spur anyone who hasn’t played to feel rage in the surprising way players experienced it.

There are also moments of levity; spelling out a word with your fridge magnets gets you a sticker, as does trying to drop your toaster into the bathtub. It is not a heart-racing game, but it shows that a really excellent game needn’t be.

While Unpacking is undoubtedly my top pick there are other wonderful games worth mentioning: The Artful Escape, Webbed, The Forgotten City, and Heavenly Bodies.

2022: Cult of the Lamb

If it isn’t the largest Australian game ever, it definitely was for the year 2022.

Cult of the Lamb is a healthy mix of roguelike dungeon crawler and cult management, two of the most addicting styles of gameplay mixed into one. Much can be said about the feeling of playing this game, whether you are slicing up demon squids with daggers or collecting farm-grown hops for your cult-built bar, but more impressive is the vibe created by layering these mechanics with an insanely banging soundtrack, a uniquely cute and psychotic visual style, and subtle yet effective writing.

I asked Julian Winton, Creative Director at Massive Monster, how the hell they managed to pull this off:

“Well we knew our life depended on this game. If we didn’t get it right we’d all be screwed. And when we signed with Devolver we knew it was our one chance to make a big hit, so we threw everything we had at it. Blood, sweat, tears – the lot!”

The team’s success is reflected in their cult followers who express their love for Lamb through wild cosplaying, fan-made animations and action figures, and the coolest tattoos you’ve ever seen: “It’s insane that we made something that people love enough to get it permanently tattooed on their bodies.”

While the team members usually play video games and indulge in their special interests such as “festivals, family, dancing, blood rituals, studying, hanging with our pets, and cannibalism,” they have an absolutely stacked schedule for MIGW:

• Taking Up Space: A Networking Event for Women and Gender Diverse People in Games
• INDOCTRINATE: A Cult of the Lamb Party
• PAX Aus: including a massive eight-metre temple and a schedule of panels and events

“Plus, Massive Monster is turning 10 this year so we have to celebrate that…So the plan for MIGW is to survive MIGW!”

And probably what was always going to be the next logical step for their deeply dedicated fanbase:

“We’ll be throwing two Cult of the Lamb-themed weddings this PAX Aus, for two amazing couples who have a deep relationship with the game. Not one but two real, legal weddings. It’s one of the most surreal things and not something we expected when we opened up Unity to create a game about a cult, but here we are, building a massive temple–it’s gonna be a crazy day!”

Julian says that working in the Australian landscape has helped, particularly the federal and state funding and the lack of triple-A companies: “It means developers are more cross-discipline, giving them the skills to make a whole game with a tiny team. The game development scene here is also quite social, resulting in the ability to share resources and help elevate each other. “

When asked if he would have done anything differently with Cult of the Lamb Julian replied: “More poop,” which leads me to entertain an alternative Lamb universe; even more poop? Could we have had temple upgrades with poop adornments, or be able to make followers out of poop? The response has since troubled me in my most vulnerable moments. Yet, with no current plans for a new Massive Monster game, I simply pray to lamb that “We’re always working on something” means another poop content update!

2023: Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical

Last year was an excellent one for Australian games, with a whole bunch of different types across the board from Moving Out 2, KILLBUG, the hand-painted The Master’s Pupil and the difficultly charming Knuckle Sandwich, and a return to mobile excellence with Gubbins.

Stray Gods is emblematic of the cool and experimental games to come out of 2023, where RPG elements are mixed with visual novel and comic aesthetics, and experienced as a choose-your-own-adventure musical. You play as Grace, recently armed with the godly power of the Last Muse, and sing your way to solving a murder and saving yourself in the process.

The amount of change you can create, from the big story arcs, to who you romance, to the ending, is all dependent on the in-song choices you make and becomes increasingly clear with every playthrough. On top of all the music, which had to be written and recorded to make these choices possible, the songs are exceptionally composed and performed by a cast of top-class singers.

I asked Managing Director of Summerfall Studios Liam Esler, what was so special about making games in Australia: “The Australian spirit of cheeky larrikinism and open communication I think really leads to some fun collaboration–plus, Australia being a country of immigrants, you get so much fascinating diversity of creativity, history and opinion. It’s a creative melting pot.”

The production of Stray Gods was undertaken through the pandemic, and Esler sees it as something that shaped the game: “Apart from picking a different game to make that had some previous examples to pull from, or somehow avoiding COVID, it’s hard to imagine what we might have done differently–Stray Gods was built of its time and from its constraints. It’s special because of those things, not despite them.”

The team has mostly moved on from Stray Gods and “are deep into [their] next thing,” but the game and its reception continues to warm the team, saying “Whenever Stray Gods has a big impact on someone it makes us so happy.”

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As we are still in the midst of 2024 we won’t know what the big game will be until after the fact, but there are some strong contenders in games such as Solium Infernum, Broken Roads, and Wild Bastards. At this year’s Australian Game Developer Awards there are three battling it out which have all brought something unique to the landscape; The beautifully, heavily detailed Conscript, Kill Knight made by studio Playside, assumed to be the largest studio in Australia at the moment, and Diets and Deities, with the team Larrikin Interactive who not only are the first to receive territory funding, but were also instrumental in making the funding existent.

By all accounts it may be that Plucky Squire will be the fan favourite of 2024, but reflecting on this list it is clear that, regardless of numbers on a screen, everyone who makes up the exceptionally talented community of game makers in Australia is an absolute winner.

This article was commissioned by WellPlayed with support from Creative Victoria.

Melbourne International Games Week runs from October 3–13, for more info visit https://gamesweek.melbourne/