Tiny teams, big ideas: why indie mobile is thriving

Most of the games we loved this year were made by a handful of people, sometimes just one. There's a freedom in that. No committee smoothed the weird edges off, and the weird edges are usually the best part.

Tideborne Command is a good example — its tide mechanic is the sort of risky central idea a big studio would probably water down. Here it's front and centre, and the game is more memorable for it.

Small teams also tend to listen. Send them a bug report and you might get a reply from the actual developer within a day. That relationship makes the whole scene feel alive in a way bigger releases rarely do.

If you want to support this, the simplest thing is to actually pay for the games you enjoy and leave a thoughtful review. It sounds obvious, but for a two-person studio it genuinely matters.