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Watch Japanese indie game festival BitSummit Gaiden this weekend

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Games being shown this year include Boyfriend Dungeon, Neversong, Fight Crab, and Chicory: A Colorful Tale.

(Image credit: BitSummit)

The annual BitSummit event, Japan's festival celebrating indie games, was originally planned for May this year in Kyoto, but had to be cancelled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Its replacement is BitSummit Gaiden, an online event including Twitch streams and a Discord server.

Over 75 games from Japan and around the world are being showcased, with streamable demos available on Utomik rather than on a show floor. All of the games are divided up into five teams and you can see them on a neat map of the event.

On the Discord server there are live chats with the developers, let's plays, and competitions, and the server will remain after the weekend as a permanent community. Follow the events on Twitch as well as the hashtag #BitSummitGaiden on social media.

For more on what makes BitSummit so special, here's our story on how it's paving the way for indie games in Japan from last year.

Jody Macgregor
Jody Macgregor
Weekend/AU Editor

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he re having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.