Games

“Tiny Bookshop” has become one of the most prominent recent gaming successes to come out of North Rhine-Westphalia. At the 2025 German Developer Awards, the game won three awards—including Best German Game, Best Indie Game, and Best Graphics. This was followed by the New Talent Award at the 2026 German Computer Game Awards: Best Debut:

In “Tiny Bookshop,” players leave their old lives behind and open a small mobile bookstore on the coast. At various locations, they sell used books, offer personalized recommendations, and get to know the residents of the small coastal town. Little by little, the traveling shop becomes a new center of their lives—and a simple management concept evolves into a heartwarming story about community, literature, and a different way of life.

At the 2026 German Computer Game Awards, “Super Meat Boy 3D” was honored with the Best Game Design award. With this achievement, the Essen-based studio Sluggerfly successfully transformed an internationally renowned indie franchise from a classic 2D precision platformer into a three-dimensional game world:

Meat Boy is back—this time in three dimensions. In search of Bandage Girl, players must master high-precision jumps, deadly traps, circular saws, and increasingly challenging obstacle courses. The series’ familiar trial-and-error principle remains intact: Failure is part of the game, and every new attempt brings players one step closer to the perfect run.

At the 2026 German Computer Game Awards, “MicroMacro: Downtown Detective” was named Best Mobile Game. The FMS particularly highlighted the combination of hidden-object aesthetics and criminal investigation:

A vast city map becomes a crime scene: clues to various crimes are hidden on streets, inside buildings, and among countless tiny figures. Players must observe closely, track characters across multiple locations, and reconstruct the sequence of events in a case from individual details. “MicroMacro: Downtown Detective” thus translates the unique concept of the successful board game series into a standalone digital gaming experience.