On the first episode of Games from Your Countries, we visit the South-American country of Argentina. The home country of Tango and Lionel Messi is also home to many wonderful game developers. Argentina has produced such games as the MMO Argentum Online and the massively popular phone game series Trivia Crack.

Top 10 Games from Argentina
Deeply Dark by Dalesi
Goldernjar Fall by Ardeal Studio
Clones by Grup Studio
Super Cute Alient by SETENTIA
Teratopia by Ravegan
Noir Storm by Diskeletton Studios
Blue Fire by Robi Studios
Juanito Arcade Mayhem by Game Ever
I See Red by Whiteboard Games
Esse Proxy by From South Games

Two randomly selected games from the 2022 GDWC Competition will be put against each other on the Game Discovery Page. You can learn about both games by watching a trailer or reading the game page. Not only can you use the page to discover new indie games to test out, but you can also vote for which one is your favorite out of the two! The votings that happen on the game discovery page matter in the competition, so be careful picking your favorite.

You can find the Game Discovery Page Here!

The games pictured:
The Ancients by GorillaSoftWorks
Throwaway Bay by Chonkers HQ

On this week's episode of Games from Your Countries, we journey to the home of LEGO, Denmark. Denmark is a small Nordic country that is not only famous for The Little Mermaid and plastic bricks, but also for many fantastic games. Some fan favorites from Denmark are: The stealth game series Hitman, The mobile hit game Subway Surfers, and the Hugo game series.

Top 10 Games from Denmark
Burning Daylight by Team Burning Daylight
Broken Lines by PortaPlay
PandaBall by GetAGame
THE DOOR by ARBlox
Elderfact by Zera
Endling by Team BeHuman
Figment 2: Creed Valley by Bedtime Digital Games
First Class Trouble by Invisible Walls
Athemore by Aces Games
Mutazione by Die Gute Fabrik

Director Olli and Marketing Manager Teea from the GDWC team recently were on the "Real Professional" podcast hosted by Jans, Ted, and Abbey from DreadXP. The Real Professional podcast is a podcast where real professionals from the gaming industry come to have real conversations. They discuss the GDWC, who can enter, how voting works, angry contestants, etc. Besides the GDWC, they discuss various topics such as struggles with throwing controllers and TikTok/YouTube devlogs. There is even a long rant about respectfully giving and receiving criticism.

You can listen to the podcast on YouTube through the link at the top of the blog post or on Spotify by clicking here.

The top 10 games of May have been revealed!

Before we showcase the top games, let's go briefly over how the Monthly Ranking works. The top 10 is formed based on the engagement on the game page, as well as votes on the Game Discovery Page. The highest-ranked game of each month is guaranteed a spot in the Fan Choice voting and on the Jury Choice shortlist of any category it's participating in. For further information check out the blog post here.

Without further ado, let's get into the Top 10!

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In the first place is Just Take Your Left by Mehrdad Rezaei, a two-member team from Iran. This exciting point-and-click adventure game features cartoon cinematics with incredible hand-drawn art. With this victory, they receive a spot on the top of the list. Congratulation Mehrdad Rezaei!

"My new mission was to go to the haunted Ghost Palace to find a great big diamond. I had no desire to go to that wretched place at all! You might think I was scared, but that wasn't the case at all!

A challenging but fun point-and-click adventure game. Morris's detective mission is to fetch a fabulous diamond from the Ghost Palace. He's totally reluctant to go to that damn place!"

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In second is The Crackpet Show by Vixa Games, founded in 2016 by a group of passionate indie developers from Gdańsk, Poland. This action-packed rogue-lite shoot-'em-up comes from a team that strives to create games with unique and eye-catching art styles and uncommon mixes of genres and themes.

"Are you ready to get famous? If so, grab your gun and join the most violent TV show in the history of violent TV shows! Participants will have to shoot, smash and rip through hundreds of enemies on their way to victory!"

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Third in the ranking is Defend from Candyland! by MI Pixel, a game studio from the United Kingdom. This top-down tower defense game comes from a team that specialises in Pixel Art games.

"The trees are under attack from the evil candy, you need to Defend from Candyland! Build up a plant based defence to protect the trees from both land and air. Try to overwhelm them by planting the whole field with your defences, or prioritize a few choice plants and level them up, the choice is yours!"

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	4th Burn Me Alive 2 by Davit Galoyan from Armenia. "A mixture of psychological horror and drama with elements of action, survival melee, and shooting."
	5th amazin' George 2 by Spacefarer Games Ltd from the United Kingdom. "A colourful, stunning 3D HD JRPG Style, turn based RPG featuring the Spacefarer cat, George."
	6th Quasimorphosis: Exordium by MgnmScrptmDvs from Russia. "Sci-fi roguelike with tactical missions and survival horror elements."
	7th The Lone Blade by Opia Games from France. "The Lone Blade is a 3D platformer where you are a soul trapped in a sword."
	8th Last Shape Standing by Ember Works from South Africa. "Last Shape Standing is a survival game where each player needs to survive through challenges"
	9th Absolute Tennis Manager by ATEMIX from France. "The most complete tennis management game!"
	10th Dreams of Adventure by Farting Rainbow Production from Serbia and Montenegro. "Brings you to a world of medieval fantasy where you chose how to play and impact the world around you."

Your game is in the competition, what now?
All games automatically participate in the public ranking. It is formed from two factors: Engagement on the game page such as game page views, likes, and shares, as well as votes on the Game Discovery page. Each month the Top 10 games will be revealed.

The highest-ranked game of each month will be guaranteed a spot in the Fan Choice voting and on the Jury Choice shortlist of any category it's participating in. The rankings are reset each month so it is never too late to participate!

At the end of the Championship period, the rest of the nominees for Fan Choice voting and Jury Choice shortlist will be picked based on the combined Monthly Rankings throughout the year.

Want to learn more? Read our Championship Rules here!

Every Wednesday a well-received series of Top 10 Games are uploaded to the GDWC's YouTube channel. In the series, Community Manager David goes through the best games per country. All of them have participated in the GDWC in previous years. 

Last week's games were showcased from Brazil, the fifth-biggest country in the world with tons of amazing games. Let the video speak for itself. You can comment on the video about which country you want to see next!

Top 10 Games from Brazil:

Make The Burger by Creative Hand
Devil Inside Us: Roots Of Evil by MrSkull
Red Ronin by Wired Dreams Studio
Galaxy Champions TV by aQuadiun
Karma City Police by Meca Games
Alien Holiday by Bradipo Games
Handcop by Jeff Ramos
Elves Clan: Tricky Seasons by Elves Clan Collective 
Dandara by Long Hat House
Keylocker by Moonana

Thomas, a stay-at-home dad, is making a mobile game based on the drawings of his kid, who is on the autism spectrum. It's an infinite runner designed for a younger audience with the goal of teaching spelling while having fun.

In 'Go, Booper, GO!' the player will dodge and jump obstacles to build preset words before time runs out. A second play mode allows players to pick up letters and spell words for points. Thomas tells his kids' drawings seemed to be a natural for making game characters with. And they had filled stacks of sketchbooks with them.

Thomas can pay them with juice boxes & snacky bars. He is making this game with the end goal of funding his VR game based on the same character and donating part of the profits to autism awareness & acceptance.

Check out 'Go, Booper, GO!'

Apotheorasis is a first-person shooter audio-only game; the first of its kind as far as the developer team, Tall Guy Productions knows. While they definitely leveraged the existing "language" of both genres (FPS, audio game), innovation was mandatory to navigate these uncharted waters.

Shooting in an audio-only game in a way that feels both fair and realistic at the same time was a big design challenge. There is a form of aim assist which factors in distance, angle, wanted section difficulty, player speed, and rate of fire to create forgiving yet challenging gameplay, ironed out towards perfection through countless iterations.

Combat-based audio games tend to switch between navigation, narration, and combat, which can be found to be quite an immersion-breaker; so the team did away with it and treated the game like they would a classic FPS. This of course created a series of problems they had to take care of, but the end result seamlessly blends combat, action, navigation, and social interactions without ever pausing the flow.

Simplifying what an FPS plays like, without butchering it, was a big challenge as well. All enemies die with one hit, you don't have to aim vertically (it was too disorienting for players), you don't have to recharge, and you've got a total defense as a panic button (which a few enemies can break, creating rock-paper-scissors gameplay).

Everything in the game is diegetic to reduce ludonarrative dissonance to the bare minimum. Even instructions that mention key binds are given figuratively, in a way that doesn't break the fourth wall (i.e.. talking to the character, rather than the player). The team said that choosing a sci-fi setting leaned itself quite naturally to that, but it still was a pain at every step to have to justify everything without being too verbose about it.

Apotheorasis is coming out next month (May 2022) and is already available in Early Access.

Games Job Fair of Spring 2022 is a fully online event dedicated to recruitment, career-building, & networking in the games industry.

- Connect with #gamedev studios
- Talks by industry heavyweights
- Networking between studios, peers, speakers
- Talent career Level-Up with expert advice
- New insights into the games industry

Between April 27-29 the fair connects Industry Speakers & 1000+ Talents from around the world. The organizer, Games Factory Talents aims at getting the right people to the right jobs by giving talents the chance to get hired by a studio, receive advice to boost their careers & take part in fun activities hosted in a friendly, diverse environment.

Connect with Pixel United, King, Yager, MAG Interactive, InnoGames, 1939 Games, Supercell & many more! Sessions include Creative Portfolio Reviews, Advice for Your Journey in the Games Industry, panel discussions on Diversity & Inclusion, Mobile Gaming Trends of 2022, & much more!

The event is held for industry professionals & rookies alike. You are welcome to join & explore job opportunities, familiarize yourself with the industry, & network.

For more information, please visit GamesJobFair.com and you can register here: https://apply.gamesjobfair.com/