요약
*Hiccups/dev kits permitting
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I’ve covered a lot of gaming conventions in my time. Innumerable PAXes, E3 once, and a few Tokyo Game Shows. None of them match the immaculate vibes of BitSummit, Japan’s indie gaming convention.
From developers fresh out of University to seasoned vets striking out on their own, an infectious enthusiasm for this hobby we all love takes over Kyoto for a weekend – made all the better this year as the showrunners bumped BitSummit up from a sweltering July to a bearable May.
Despite the heat, last year I saw a renewed enthusiasm for Nintendo as the Switch 2 had just been released. This year, it was almost impossible to choose just 10 games that will eventually make their way onto the Switch 1 or 2, so I’ve upped it to 12.
I’ve confirmed with each and every developer below that their game is either coming to a Switch console or they’re earnestly trying to get there, as Nintendo is still playing a bit coy with Switch 2 dev kits.
BitSummit 2026 - Every (Eventual) Switch 1 & 2 Game We Played
Penguin Colony (Switch 2)
When the director behind Penguin Colony, Tali Faulkner, reached out for a meeting to show me his demo, I expected something more along the lines of an Animal Crossing clone based on the title alone. I couldn’t have been more wrong.
Instead, Penguin Colony is best described as Lovecraftian cosmic horror seen through the eyes of penguins. Yes, you read that right. Coming from Origame Digital (Umurangi Generation), the penguins — which you can swap between and have different traversal strengths based on their size — explore a very John Carpenter-esque Antarctic, slowly unravelling the mystery of what happened to an expedition.
As I slid on my belly across large swathes of ice (first as a large penguin and then a baby penguin that could squeeze through gaps), I uncovered camps inhabited by insane expeditioners. Some mumbled and rambled about unimaginable horrors as I waddled on by, while others had carved the skin from their faces, revealing a gruesome mask beneath. One’s head exploded as I shimmied a bit too close.
I won’t spoil much more because Penguin Colony is one of those games you have to play yourself, but I will say if you’re a fan of Disco Elysium you might recognise the narrator’s voice.
This one you can expect on Switch 2 sometime in October, along with a demo this summer.
Editor's note: At the request of the developer, we have removed a detail previously mentioned that wasn't intended to be revealed.
Pro Jank Footy (Switch 1 & 2)
As a Canadian, I didn’t know Australia had its own style of football, but after sitting down to play Pro Jank Footy, now I do.
As the title implies, Pro Jank Footy takes an arcade-like Aussie-rules football game and adds a lot of roguelite jank to it, making for an absurdly hectic party game that anyone can pick up and play – even Canadians!
Controls are simple: you can pass between the players on your team and kick the ball about. Pro Jank Footy complicates this simple formula by giving the player who lets in a goal a choice or cards that manipulate the match. These cards can be anything from swapping scores to adding a literal car to your team that runs down opponents.
As I played a few matches, I saw cards that turned everyone on the field into footballs, added extra goals all around the field, spawned a DVD Video logo that obstructed the screen (and didn’t quite hit the corners), and even more absurdity.
This uniquely Australian game is confirmed for Switches 1 and 2 sometime in 2026.
Monowave (Switch 1)
Monowave is a colourful little platformer from Studio BBB Inc., a developer based in South Korea. In this adorable game, you control Mono as he shifts between different emotions that give him different powers to progress.
An angry Mono can wall jump. A happy Mono moves quicker and jumps higher. A sorrowful Mono can squeeze through gaps as a depressed little blob, and an anxious Mono has too much to worry about to mind spikey obstacles.
These emotions extend to the other critters in each stage. An angry red crocodile will attack you. On the other hand, a sad crocodile turns into a springboard to reach greater heights. The empathetic Mono can give his emotion to the creatures you come across, which is necessary to clear each level and find difficult-to-reach collectibles.
You can expect to play Monowave on Switch 1 sometime in 2026.
FEAR FA 98 (Switch 1 & 2)
FEAR FA 98 was by far the most bizarre game I played at BitSummit this year, and I think developer Jacob Jazz would be glad to hear me say so. It combines arcade-soccer gameplay with the horror of Silent Hill 2 and then adds a few dashes of grotesque absurdity for good measure.
It’s really two games in one: an old-school FIFA but with power-ups and a lot of blood and a single-player Silent Hill-esque campaign. If you want to ignore the campaign entirely, you can do so, but playing the versus mode will unlock items that help you progress the story further.
I spent most of my time getting wrecked by Jazz and the computer alike as I tried my very best as a team of sexy, murderous nurses to score some goals. The more I played, the more bizarre things got, as power-ups would trigger Final Fantasy-like summons that scored for me with massive energy beams.
I’m looking forward to seeing more of it when it enters Early Access later this year – especially with online play. It will come to Nintendo consoles sometime after that.
Vikings on Trampolines (Consoles TBC)
Owlboy is one of the most beautiful pixel-based games I’ve played, and D-Pad Studios may have outshone it with their next game, Vikings on Trampolines. Thematically and gameplay-wise, the two games couldn’t be more different: where Owlboy was an action platformer with its fair share of puzzles, Vikings on Trampolines is a brawler featuring both a co-op adventure mode and friendship-ruining versus mode.
In the former, you and up to three friends take on Balloonie and his balloon-based henchmen because Vikings are their natural enemies with their pointy helms. The problem is the Vikings can’t touch the ground and have to continue bouncing on trampolines; if they do fall off, they lose a heart and if there’s none left, it’s game over.
In the first stage I played with Art Director Simon Anderson, I had little problem popping some evil balloon guys and staying aloft, jumping off his viking to achieve even greater heights – though I did get distracted by the gorgeously rendered forest and mountain in the background quite often.
I didn’t last long in the latter stages, however, as trampolines flew by on speedy minecarts or a massive whale chomped apart half of the ship that the trampolines rested on, though I definitely improved in my short time with the game because it’s incredibly easy and intuitive to play.
Vikings on Trampolines can be played with only the left control stick, making it more accessible for players of different ages and abilities. In fact, Anderson told me he played with deaf people who sign with one hand while playing with the other, conspiring to take him out in the game’s versus mode in a language he couldn’t follow.
Speaking of the versus mode, Vikings on Trampolines will absolutely wreck friendships. Power-ups spawn frequently and give you abilities like hammer attacks that send your soon-to-be former friends flying off-screen as if they were a Super Smash Bros. character.
These Vikings will likely make it to a Nintendo Switch someday, although nothing is officially confirmed quite yet.