Naiad Is A Chill Delight Shadow Dropped At Wholesome Snack

The biggest games are set to get accolades at The Game Awards on December 12, but first, upcoming indies are getting their turn. On December 10, indie showcase Wholesome Snack offered what’s certainly the most low-key part of The Game Awards, featuring a short, chill stream in place of the main show’s three-hour extravaganza. The biggest surprise at this year’s showcase was the release of one anticipated game in the middle of the show, but that’s far from the only announcement worth seeing.

Naiad was originally announced for a 2022 release before it was hit with a long, indefinite delay. Developer HiWarp recently teased a major announcement coming at the show, and fans’ patience has now paid off. Naiad launched on PlayStation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC alongside the showcase, bringing its relaxed aquatic adventure to players at long last.

In Naiad, you play as a river spirit leisurely making her way through a natural waterway, only to find humans doing what they so often do and messing the whole thing up. Over the course of the short, stress-free game, your journey is broken up by small, usually optional goals — guiding ducklings to their mothers and frogs to lilypads, for example. Naiad feels as much like a relaxation toy as it does a game. It is lightweight puzzles throughout as you try to reunite lost animals and protect the river where you make your home, but the overall experience prizes serenity over challenge.

Even after knowing about Naiad for years, I was struck by how gorgeous it looks when I finally got my hands on it. Every element of the world, from your character and her animal friends to trees and the river itself, is bright and inviting, with an almost tangible quality of layered shapes cut out of paper. Especially at a time when companies with too much money are shilling generative AI as a way to further alienate human developers from game development, the handmade quality of Naiad is a breath of fresh air.

Naiad isn’t the only game to explore the natural world at the show. Immediately after revealing the game’s release, the show also debuted a trailer for A Waddleful Life. In this upcoming game, you play as a mother duck raising her ducklings in the wilderness. A Waddleful Life is still fairly early in development, but it does already call to mind shades of Shelter — though presumably with less chance your babies will be eaten by a hawk.

For anyone who prefers their video game ducks to be a little more wizened, Duck Detective also shared an announcement. The indie investigation game is getting a sequel, this time moving its feathered investigator from the confines of a rundown bus station to a campsite beset by ghosts. Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping is a standalone sequel due out in 2025. You don’t need to play the original first, but it’s worth setting aside a few hours to do so.

Speaking of sequels, the show ended with an unexpected treat for fans of photography games. All the way back in 2021, the black-and-white Toem tasked players with using their cameras to solve a series of (usually very silly) puzzles in its diorama-like worlds. The excellent photo adventure even won Best Debut Game at the BAFTAs for its troubles. This year’s Wholesome Snack ended with the world premiere trailer for Toem 2, with a release date yet to be announced.

Aside from Naiad, the show features a few other updates you don’t need to wait months or years for. River Towns, a hybrid of puzzle and city builder games, premiered its trailer and dropped its first demo at the same time. Aikyam, a turn-based RPG inspired by Bollywood movies also announced a new demo, and idle farming sim Rusty’s Retirement, which is meant to be played at the bottom of your monitor while you go about other tasks, has a new content update out now. If you’ve been waiting for the emotional story-driven game Pine: A Story of Loss, you only have to hold out for a few more days, as it announced its December 13 release date at the show.

The full showcase features two dozen new and upcoming games, and clocking in at just 30 minutes, it’s worth checking out. Even if you’re gearing up to watch the spectacle of The Game Awards, Wholesome Snack is an excellent appetizer, featuring a smaller, decidedly cozier selection of upcoming titles. The full show is available to watch on YouTube.