PAX Unplugged 2025 Indie Games Market
I got into the New Mill Industries Indie Games Night Market at this year’s PAX Unplugged! This will be the first time directly selling a game of my own design.
Discovering the Night Market
I first heard of the night market last year while attending PAX Unplugged. I noticed people lining up near the expo hall after it had closed and wondered what was happening. The line was long and the games on the tables looked like the combination of a flea market and the experiments of a mad scientist. Pretty sure I saw a game that used PEZ dispensers as a component.
Unfortunately, I was in the middle of a pitch meeting with a publisher evaluating my concepts when I spotted the event. So I didn't get a chance to check it out up close, but I made a mental note to look into it afterward.
What I found delighted me.
New Mill Industries runs this event with what they call "a punk rock ethos" – they're a boutique publisher focused on small print runs of games with clean design and quirky themes, deliberately avoiding the excesses of modern board game publishing.
The second annual Indie Games Night Market takes place on November 22, 2025 at 7PM, featuring 30 designers at small tables selling games that would otherwise have no channel for purchase. The intention is to showcase games that haven't been signed by publishers, have no plans for Kickstarter, and might otherwise remain unavailable. It's specifically an outlet for interesting ideas that may not have wide commercial appeal – games only, no art, merchandise, or accessories.
This year, I decided to apply – and I got in!
Introducing Community Cult
Some of the Horrors you can uncover in Community Cult
I'm proud to announce that I'll be joining 29 other vendors at this year's New Mill Indie Game Market with my game Community Cult!
Community Cult is a cooperative card game inspired by the Cthulhu Mythos and the adventures of a pup named Scooby-Doo. Play as a team of amateur crime-solving teenagers, trying to expose the evil activities of a local cult. Gather evidence and solve mysteries across five cursed locations before your sanity breaks or time runs out.
This is a game I've been working on for years. It started as part of a submission to a large board game publisher looking for expansions. My initial concept was basically a variation oft Cthulhu Fluxx with a different approach to handling madness.
Early versions of our team of investigators:
Since then, the game has taken many forms. What started as pure Lovecraftian horror became generic horror, then took a turn toward the family-friendly with themes inspired first by Scooby-Doo, then Nancy Drew. Each pivot taught me something new about what the game wanted to be, though I never lost sight of that core cooperative mystery-solving experience.
An early attempt to include Scoob and the gang into the Mythos of Cthulhu
Despite pitching it to multiple publishers over the years – getting little nibbles of interest here and there – I never found someone who shared my vision for the game. So I've decided to self-publish.
The Proving Ground
This night market will serve as my proving ground. I'm genuinely curious whether public opinion will align more with the publishers I've spoken with or with my own enthusiasm for the game. I'm only bringing 13 copies, all handmade, so it'll be an intimate test.
I plan to document the entire process of getting the game ready here on my blog, using Geoffrey Engelstein's framework from his book Game Production: Prototypes and Manufacture as my guide through each stage of development.
This is just the beginning of the journey. In my next post, I'll dive deeper into my self-publishing plans and what I've learned so far about taking a game from concept to market.
Stay tuned – and if you're at PAX Unplugged on November 22nd, stop by the night market at 7PM and say hello!
A full description of all the games at this year's market can be found at: https://www.newmillindustries.com/ignm