Alex Orona And Super GG Radio's Best Betas And Early Access Games Of 2025 | Winter Spectacular 2025
The Dungeon Experience
What if you take a first-person dungeon-crawling experience and turn it into a cheaply made theme park experience led by a mindcrab attempting to sell you a timeshare? This is the comedy gold you’ll get with The Dungeon Experience. The demo alone comes with a two-hour tour of the dungeon facilities, genius gags, and a sax solo to die for. I love everything about this kind of game; we need more curated, directed story experiences like this.
Beatdown City Survivors
The Beatdown games have been the indie beat ‘em up brainchild of the development team at NuChallenger. Now they’ve taken their fantastic cartoonish beat ‘em up retro aesthetic to the Vampire Survivors gameplay, and it works surprisingly well. Everything from the stage weapons to the boss fights all translate in a way that makes sense in a different genre. I would definitely recommend it if you are a fan of the River City or BeatDown City games, but in a new and exciting format.
DRFT
TOP DOWN TOKYODRIFTING VAMPIRE SURVIVORS LETS GOOOOO!! That sentence alone gets me so pumped. The Tokyo Drift soundtrack bumping while auto-firing bullets at swarms of enemies, while doing donuts, is such a fun visual that it may actually get me into this genre where all others have failed. I love love love it!
Cairn
If 2023’s Jusant grabbed you, Cairn is the next natural iteration. A mountain climbing game that adds survival elements, matched with an endearing story and beautiful vistas. Every part of Cairn can be screenshot and turned into desktop wallpaper; it's one of those games. You want to grab people just to show them how fantastic it looks. Also, the climbing is intuitive and has a real easy learning curve.
Brickadia
For those trying to get away from what seems to be an increasingly problematic Roblox community, Brickadia offers a similar interface and gameplay engine, but something that more closely resembles Lego. From building advanced designs to crafting hyper-specific game modes or play spaces, Brickadia does it all. It’s a sandbox with all the features you could want, with much more coming throughout its Early Access period. Check it out!
A Week In The Life of an Antisocial Giraffe
There are some days when I just don’t want to talk to anyone, and that’s why I identify heavily with A Week In The Life of an Antisocial Giraffe. A game where you manipulate the environment so as to have the giraffe perform mundane tasks without interacting with anyone. From moving crowds in a grocery store to accepting a package using an advanced hand crank arm machine, each scenario is more ridiculous than the last, and I love everything this game does.
Punk Runner
Inspired by Need For Speed Underground 2, Punk Runner is a new cyberpunk racing game out of itch.io. Imagine the flying cars from Fifth Element in a futuristic city, and being able to explore the open world while also entering into high-speed street races. That’s the dream currently being served up by Punk Runner, and it’s definitely one to watch out for if you need a little more Need For Speed action these days.
MINDWAVE
In a dystopian world, people compete in mind games to reach the top of Mindscape Tower. It’s a reality TV premise, but drenched in a stylized Friday Night Funkin’ art style visual novel. To compete in the games, you have to perform quick-fire Wario Wario-type mini games at a rapid clip in order to defeat your opponents. The game has a fast-paced action feel, but then slows things down for fully realized character interactions and development. I found myself fascinated with this world and how it carries itself between witty humor and outrageous events. I can’t wait to see more of what MINDWAVE can bring when it finally releases.
Secret Lab Cleaner
Combine PowerWash Simulator with Five Nights at Freddys and we have Secret Lab Cleaner. You are an unnamed janitor in a secret underground facility. Your job is to clean up the messes left by the horrifying experiments locked down in the labs below. Oftentimes, having to avoid befalling the same fate as the scientists before you by running, hiding, or other tricks to avoid getting caught while also leaving the lab sparkly clean. It’s a fascinating and scary experience, but it also hits the perfect endorphin high of accomplishing mundane tasks.
