The ‘IR Demo Day’, which provided investment opportunities to excellent developers selected for ‘2025 Indie Craft’, a festival of Korean indie games, was successfully held at the Seongnam Global Convergence Center’s multipurpose hall on August 13th.
Hosted by Seongnam City (Mayor Shin Sang-jin) and co-hosted by Seongnam Industrial Promotion Agency (Director Lee Eui-jun) and Korea Mobile Game Association (Chairman Hwang Seong-ik), ‘2025 Indie Craft’ held ‘2025 Indie Craft IR Demo Day’, a presentation event for excellent developers who want to create IR decks and find investment opportunities through IR deck writing lectures and 1:1 mentoring to support domestic and international investment for selected developers.
This year’s IR Demo Day brought together 10 developers selected by Indiecraft as the Top 50 domestic/community developers, each dedicated to finding domestic and international investment and creating IR decks. They delivered passionate presentations on their quest to become “K-Indie Games” that resonate on the global stage. Each developer presented their games and business plans with poise and impact over a 15-minute presentation, consisting of an 8-minute presentation and a 7-minute Q&A session.
The participating developers, in order of presentation, were ▲Netstream ▲The Cove ▲Lighters Games ▲Luminous Tales ▲Mayfly ▲By Witchlight ▲Studio Doodal ▲Iron Deer Games ▲Ilwol Studio ▲Playday, a total of 10 companies, who showcased unique ideas and high quality regardless of genre.
In order to conduct a precise evaluation to select excellent developers, 9 game industry experts, VCs, and publishers including ▲Low Partners, ▲Prodigy Investment, ▲SV Investment, ▲Smilegate Investment, ▲Laguna Investment, ▲Mirae Asset Capital, ▲Neowiz, ▲Korea Value Investment, and ▲Com2uS Platform participated to strengthen their expertise and conduct heated evaluations.
As a result of the judging, the grand prize went to THANKS, LIGHT. by Writers Games. This indie puzzle game is for fans of first-person puzzle games like Portal, Superliminal, and Viewfinder. It was praised for its light and shadow mechanics that allow players to freely move between 2D and 3D, offering a fresh perspective on not only puzzles but also thrillers.
The Excellence Awards went to three developers: The Cove, By Witchlight, and Mayfly. The Cove’s 1-4 player action rogue-lite shooter, “Shell Bless the Faithless,” tells the story of a Viking warrior who must save nine kingdoms from endless waves of enemies and their leaders in a chaotic world where runes, magic, and shotguns coexist. The exhilarating action stands out. By Witchlight introduced the drawing snake-like genre, “The Magus’ Circle,” and with its unique magic system and faithful narrative, it achieved over 20,000 wishlists on the PC platform Steam, attracting the attention of global users and being recognized for its distinctive color. Mayfly is developing “Project Revenant,” a precision-aiming run-and-gun genre inspired by the movie “John Wick,” and is developing simultaneously for PC and consoles with the goal of early access in the fourth quarter of 2025. The company has proven its development capabilities by signing partnership agreements with PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox.
The award ceremony was held by Lee Deok-hee, the head of Seongnam Industrial Promotion Agency, who stated, “I would like to thank all the developers who passionately presented their IR, and Seongnam Industrial Promotion Agency will continue to support indie developers together with Indiecraft.”
Indiecraft Co-Organizing Committee Chairman Hwang Seong-ik said, “All 10 teams we met at this year’s IR Demo Day demonstrated excellent capabilities and potential,” and added, “Regardless of whether they are selected or not, I hope they will continue to challenge themselves for the growth of the Korean indie game industry, and Indiecraft will also provide its full support.”
Indiecraft will be participating in “2025 Gamescom,” one of the world’s top three game shows, held in Cologne, Germany, from August 20th to 22nd, to promote Indiecraft’s selected games. An offline exhibition will also be held on September 19th and 20th in conjunction with “2025 GXG,” Seongnam City’s largest cultural event. This year, Indiecraft plans to showcase an even larger exhibition and diverse content, drawing over 30,000 visitors last year.
