- 15 Oct the festival closes
- 50 games in the Official Selection
- 8 free demos picked out below
- 2 made in Melbourne
LudoNarraCon is a games convention with no queues, no lanyards and no convention-centre carpet. It runs on Steam; the booths are store pages; the demos download to your PC or Steam Deck; and the panels are streams you can watch in bed. Fellow Traveller, the Melbourne label behind Citizen Sleeper and Genesis Noir, has run it since 2019 as a festival for story-rich games. This year, it moved from its usual autumn slot to 8 to 15 October, and that means there are two days left.
Fifty games made the Official Selection. Every unreleased one has to have a public demo for the week, and every released one has to be on sale, so the whole thing is set up for trying before buying. I went through the lot and pulled out eight. Two are Australian, two are out now and cheaper than usual, and the rest give you a free slice of something that isn’t finished yet.
Side Quest What Does Ludonarrative Even Mean?
“Ludo” is Latin for “play,” so a ludonarrative is the story a game tells through what you do, as opposed to the one told in its cutscenes. Designer Clint Hocking made the word famous in 2007 with a blog post about BioShock, where he argued the game’s story about free will clashed with its mechanics, which push you to grab power at every turn. He called the gap “ludonarrative dissonance”, and people have been arguing about it in forums ever since. LudoNarraCon is the friendlier end of the same idea: games where the story and the playing are the same thing.
Penguin Colony
Cosmic horror, but you’re a penguin. ORIGAME DIGITAL has retold H.P. Lovecraft’s At the Mountains of Madness from the point of view of the local wildlife, so the humans arrive at your bit of Antarctica, start digging for something they shouldn’t, and you waddle around watching them lose it. The horror is all in what the people do, and you can’t do a thing about it, which is a better fit for Lovecraft than any gun has ever been.
It’s the one with the nearest release date: this Saturday, 17 October. One detail I didn’t expect on the Steam page: the interface is translated into Māori, alongside Arabic, Japanese, Portuguese and Chinese.
- Cosy Creepy
- Doing things Watching things
Penguin Colony on Steam. Out 17 October, demo available now.
Danchi Days
You’re Hoshino, twelve years old, spending a 2000s summer in a Japanese danchi, the big public housing blocks with courtyards in the middle. The job is to bring back the neighbourhood’s summer festival, which means knocking on doors and getting to know everyone in the complex. Underneath the festival plot is the real story: Hoshino’s grandma has dementia, and the game is about what that looks like from a kid’s height.
It’s published by Analgesic Productions, the two-person studio behind Anodyne and Sephonie, with a team of four on the game itself. It’s out on 29 October, and the demo is a full slice of the opening.
- Sunny Bittersweet
- Puzzles Conversations
Danchi Days on Steam. Out 29 October, demo available now.
The Dungeon Experience
A low-level mudcrab has decided he’s done being the first thing adventurers kill. His plan is to run a dungeon as a paid experience, and you’re the customer. Jacob Janerka and Simon Boxer, the Melbourne pair who made Paradigm, have been building this with Bone Assembly for years, and Devolver Digital picked it up to publish. The pitch on the Steam page promises “the true bliss of Financial Freedom”, with an asterisk, and the asterisk is the whole game.
There’s no release date yet, so the demo is the only way to play it this year. Give it twenty minutes. If the crab’s sales patter doesn’t get you, nothing in this list will.
- Deadpan Unhinged
- Thinky Silly
The Dungeon Experience on Steam. Release date to be announced; demo available now.
The Telwynium
The other Melbourne game. Dave Lloyd of Powerhoof made The Drifter, last year’s pulp thriller that played like a lost Sierra adventure, and this is his next one: a 90s-style fantasy epic that opens on your first night away from home, keeping watch by the fire. It’s pixel art, mouse-driven, and the Steam page lists “save anytime” and “playable at your own pace”, which for an adventure game means you can wander off and think about a puzzle for a week.
It’s not out until 2027, so this demo is the first anyone outside the studio has played. It runs on Windows, Mac and Linux, which means it’ll run on a Steam Deck too.
- Modern 1994
- Action Pointing and clicking
The Telwynium on Steam. Out in 2027, demo available now.
Apple Crumble
From Happy Broccoli Games, who made Duck Detective, a mystery where you’re told from the start that nothing is wrong. It’s your grandma’s 84th birthday. Nobody is trying to murder her. Stop suspecting your family. Don’t worry about the man in your bedroom. The game calls itself creepy-cosy, and the trick is that every reassurance makes it worse.
Out on 4 December. The demo is the party’s first hour, and it’s the one I’d hand to someone who has never played a narrative game and wants to know what the fuss is about.
- Cosy Creepy
- Relax Trust nobody
Apple Crumble on Steam. Out 4 December, demo available now.
Virtue and a Sledgehammer
You go back to the town you grew up in and knock it down. Deconstructeam, the Spanish studio behind The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood and The Red Strings Club, describes it as a story about no longer belonging to the place that made you, and the sledgehammer isn’t a metaphor. You carry it. Walls come down. What’s behind them is the story.
It’s out on 28 October through Devolver Digital, and the demo is short enough to finish in one sitting.
- Gentle Devastating
- Building Demolition
Virtue and a Sledgehammer on Steam. Out 28 October, demo available now.
Plum Road Tea Dream
An autobiographical game by Samuel Baidoo about pain, identity and the small rituals people invent to get through. You help a character called S. sit with different kinds of grief, and the game asks you to slow down rather than solve anything. It’s been out since July, and it’s 30 per cent off for the festival, bringing it to about ten dollars.
Play the demo first if you’re unsure. It’s quiet, and it’s made for people who need quiet.
- Loud Hushed
- Light Heavy
Plum Road Tea Dream on Steam. Out now: A$10.15 until the festival ends. Demo available.
Wax Heads
You work in a struggling record store. That’s it, that’s the game, and if you’ve ever stood behind a counter recommending an album to a stranger, you’ll know why it’s on this list. Patattie Games calls it cosy-punk: you chat to customers, dig through a handmade record collection, get too invested in fictional bands and their fictional drama, and occasionally slack off with your workmates.
It came out in May and is 35 per cent off this week. It also lists a touch-only option on Steam, which is rare and worth noting if you play on a tablet or a Deck without a controller.
- Stressful shift Dream job
- Streaming Vinyl only
Wax Heads on Steam. Out now: A$14.94 until the festival ends. Demo available.
Accessibility Snapshot
Accessibility checked: 13 October 2026
Everything here is what each game lists on its own Steam page, not hands-on testing. Steam’s accessibility tags are filled in by the developers themselves, so treat a missing tag as “not listed” rather than “not there”. The demos are free, which makes them the best way to check what matters to you. I’ll update this if more info becomes available.
Penguin Colony
Reported
Full controller support, colour alternatives, custom volume controls, keyboard-only option, playable without timed input, camera comfort settings. Interface in English, Arabic, Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese and Māori. Full audio in English and Māori.
Danchi Days
Reported
Full controller support, colour alternatives, keyboard-only option, playable without timed input, save anytime, camera comfort settings. English, Japanese and Simplified Chinese. No spoken audio listed.
The Dungeon Experience
Reported
Full controller support. Text in eight languages, with full audio in English. No accessibility tags listed yet, so this one’s a demo-and-see.
The Telwynium
Reported
Mouse-only option, playable at your own pace, no timed input, save anytime. English only, with full audio. Windows, Mac and Linux.
Apple Crumble
Reported
Full controller support, custom volume controls, playable at your own pace, no timed input, save anytime, camera comfort settings. English only, with full audio. Windows, Mac and Linux.
Virtue and a Sledgehammer
Reported
Full controller support. Text in seven languages. No accessibility tags listed yet.
Plum Road Tea Dream
Reported
Custom volume controls, subtitle options, playable at your own pace, no timed input, camera comfort settings. English and Dutch, both with full audio. Windows and Mac.
Wax Heads
Reported
Full controller support, mouse-only option, touch-only option, adjustable difficulty, custom volume controls, playable at your own pace, no timed input, save anytime, camera comfort settings. Text in five languages. Windows and Linux.
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Festival Info
| What | LudoNarraCon 2026 |
| Run by | Fellow Traveller, Melbourne |
| When | 8 to 15 October 2026 |
| Where | The LudoNarraCon page on Steam |
| Official Selection | 50 games |
| Sale | Around 150 to 200 narrative games discounted for the week |
| Streams | Fireside chats and demo streams on Steam and YouTube, then on demand on YouTube |
| Cost | Free to attend, all demos free |
Where to find it
- LudoNarraCon 2026 on Steam, with the Official Selection, the sale and a Steam Deck section.
- Fellow Traveller on YouTube, where the streams land afterwards.
The festival page is the kind of thing you can lose an afternoon in, so if you only have time for one demo, make it the crab.
Stay unruly.
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