350 people including indie developers, freelancers, 160 studios, publishers, platform-holders, educators and service providers gathered for GaMaYo on 22nd May as the event returned to Leeds.
Under summery festoon lighting, Project House Leeds shone and provided a brilliant setting for networking, roundtables and new game demos – over 37 games were shown off on the day. Alongside the usual game playing and networking, the event featured roundtables from Poncle, Xsolla, Yogscast Games, Devolver, UK Games Fund, Epic Games, Pitchify, Eaton Smith, Plus Accounting, Safe In Our World and Huey Games.
The event was sponsored by Plus Accounting. The event raised nearly £400 for Safe In Our World with a raffle on the evening and big applause from the attendees for the work of the charity in supporting mental health.
GaMaYo formed part of the 2025 events programme supported by Game Republic’s Official Partners Red Kite Games, Barclays Games and Creative and Xsolla. A special Game Republic VIP Reception celebrated the announcement of the new Official Partner Xsolla and Adam Phillips from Xsolla presented about the importance of collaboration in the games industry and the strength of the Northern games industry. Jamie Sefton highlighted the network’s role in supporting The Great North initiative and ensuring that games was one of the pillars of the One Creative North initiative that was announced on Monday 19th May.
See gallery at the end of this feature to get a flavour of the events and activities. Here’s a lovely short video produced by Ben Fox from Key Compass Games about the event
New indie games on show
The event hosted new game demos, some of which were world premieres – you can read interviews with the studios here. Studios and developers showing new games Miami Avalon, JaB Arcade, Gnarled Hand, Iteration Games, ProjectorGames, Lunaboot Studios, Cloud Lantern, KeyCompass, Dream on a Stick, Vext Games, MicroTitans Ltd, Slate Games, Stanwixbuster, Otterweave Games Studio, Miami Avalon, Point Reverie, Northrak, Bumbleborn, JK Globe, Shotdash, KB Entertainment, Observer Interactive, Huey Games, Xitol, Alex Johansson, Brickmouse, Claymatic Games, Retroburn, Theo Clarke, Steel Minions, Andre Moura, Panda Cat Games, Scroll Lock Games Studio, Trip Hazard Games, Neptuna, Brazen, Maximalist and Blueshift Interactive.
Jamie Sefton MD of Game Republic said “it was brilliant to see so many games on-show at GaMaYo. It’s always so exciting to have so many talented game developers, designers, artists, programmers and studio heads under one roof. We have had games signed at this event every time, and I have no doubt that the games impressed the publisher and investor guests as well as studio heads at the event.”
Game advice
At the event, all attendees were able to join up to three roundtables between 5pm and 6pm on key topics to support their games, careers and studios on topics from pitching and publishing to legal advice on the use of AI, financial advice on VGTR, crowdfunding tips and there was also a table specifically on mental health support from charity partners for the event Safe in Our World.
Dr Jackie Mulligan from Game Republic explains “We are so pleased that we got such a gathering of expertise and thank these individuals for providing insights and tips that can only make the Northern games industry stronger.”
The next GaMaYo will take place with the Game Republic Awards on 20th November 2025 at Tileyard North in Wakefield.
To find out more about Game Republic or GaMaYo, get in touch and to join the conversation for free, if you do game development in the North, join the Great Northern Games Discord.
