For the third time the Draknek New Voices grant program, led by designer/publisher Alan Hazelden, is putting money behind some promising up-and-coming thinky games made by underrepresented developers.
I've written about the grant in the past, when previous rounds of selections were announced or when some of the funded games released down the line. (From the 2025 cohort, I've recently been talking about the new demo for The Detective's Apprentice, and we're all anticipating the sometime-this-year release of the cute cartography game Map Map.)
As always, the games being funded this time around look pretty varied in both their designs and their aesthetics, and all of the developers receiving funding come from groups and backgrounds that are in the minority in our videogame landscape, helping some "New Voices" be heard and showing us puzzles and problems from new and different perspectives.
Here's the lineup of grant selections for 2026:
Wyrmspace Tactics
from Wali Studios
Join a crew of traumatised space pirates in this tile tactics card game as you commit faster-than-light heists! Push your luck and play your cards right to break in and out of freighter ships with the bag! The more you learn about your crew's past, the more memories you unlock as new cards to play.
Dream Healer
from Niebla Games
Dreamhealer is a single-player roguelite that fuses puzzle strategy with sanctuary management in a uniquely spiritual adventure. Play as a young healer (Curandera) who enters the dreams of her community to mend their inner worlds.
Navigate surreal dreamscapes through turn-based puzzle encounters, where every spatial spell reshapes the board and unlocks new tactical possibilities. Between journeys, care for your sanctuary by solving spatial, inventory-driven puzzles, turning the placement of offerings, medicines, and tools into meaningful decisions that shape each run.
Aether-07
from Prabhav Bhatnagar
Aether-07 is a Sci-Fi 3D Physics Bending Puzzler, inspired by the likes of Portal, The Talos Principle and Antichamber. Space and time are at your fingertips as you solve puzzles and explore the spacecraft Aether-07.
Chess Tales
from IRG Studios
The King has claimed an ancient fortress, reshaping it into a living labyrinth of puzzles, defended by loyal Queens, Rooks, Knights and Bishops. The same familiar chess movements used in completely new and unexpected ways.
Your journey takes you through overgrown gardens, flooded paths, collapsing caves, dangerous dungeons, and finally into the castle itself. Each area transforms familiar chess movement into something new, forcing you to think beyond the board.
LogiGolf
from Moon Tile
LogiGolf is a relaxing golf puzzle game where you place walls to guide the ball. Journey between islands to uncover new challenges and surprising discoveries.
Proof of All Concepts
from Seren
Proof of All Concepts is a minimalist game in which, through matching puzzle pieces to fill the grid, players explore unexpectedly complex consequences of a simple set of rules. Unlike traditional rule discovery games, it hides nothing from the player: all basic behaviors and interactions are known, but despite that, every puzzle asks the player to use those rules in new ways for novel solutions.
Hope you'll check out some trailers, throw out some wishlists, and keep on eye out around here for more news on these titles in the future as they progress through their development and approach release. My article from last time around lists all the games from both previous Draknek New Voices funding rounds, if you want to browse around through those, or maybe even play one.
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