Welcome to the Omni Systems Game Invention newsletter. It has received a huge makeover in an effort to make it as useful and enjoyable* as we can, and worthy of your time. We cover a wider range of subjects and content than before, not just to share our own experiences but also celebrate games related content by others..

We feel strongly about only offering actually valuable, human facing content, and if you are interested in the how and why of our philosophy please read the piece at the end of the newsletter.

*I hope you will agree with that!
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What’s inside the box?

This first edition packs a lot of content, including some really nice gifts and rewards for subscribers, a detailed feature on how we have grown our YouTube channel from 35 to almost 30,000 subscribers, by focusing on genuinely interesting and useful content.

We have news regarding new Eufloria games and content, the Eufloria Classic Anniversary Release as well as general Omni news. There is a section where we share useful resources, highlights from our Discord community, and a grab bag in which we cover things like recent film/game/culture tips and reviews and whatever else we can’t fit in the other sections.

Every following edition of the newsletter will be similarly feature rich, and we hope to improve the content each time based on your feedback and suggestions. Do reach out! We want to hear from you.

Let’s start with a look at our Game Invention Youtube channel as it offers a good look into our new approach.

Feature: “The Importance of Being Earnest”

Or “How our indie–games-focused video content is attracting an audience”

A major problem facing a lot of online content is that there is an absence of trust. People fear (rightfully) that the content is product marketing in disguise, or turns out to be clickbait or follows the standard irritating engagement farming playbook. Nobody wants to be constantly manipulated or marketed at.

For our Game Invention YouTube channel we wanted to make sure that we avoid that kind of content and offer an alternative to that approach. But that begged the question on what exactly that alternative would be. This was harder to answer than it may seem on the surface! Partly because there is so much that we CAN make video content about.

We have 25+ years of game dev experience, publishing and consulting experience, across most genres and covering most platforms. We could talk about game design, UI design, game writing, programming, art, and much more.

Additionally, we have terabytes worth of historic content that can and should be used, stemming from the many projects we have been involved in. So, finding a narrow focus or specialism seemed like a missed opportunity.

So what about the trust issue? Ultimately, we decided on a very simple approach that allows us to release a wide range of content yet still follow our philosophy on how we treat our audience. And that is by being extremely earnest.

There is no complicated agenda to figure out. We simply create videos that we ourselves find interesting or valuable in some way, and worth sharing with others. Up until not long ago, our YouTube channel had barely any followers (35!!) and no interesting content to speak of. Now, 8 months later, we are rapidly approaching 30k followers and releasing more and more worthwhile content. So it seems to be working.

Here are some examples that illustrate our approach:

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Bioframe’s Wasp Problem

The first video we released within that framework was a deep dive inside Bioframe Outpost’s ecosystem, fuelled by a mysterious bug that caused multiple wasp nests in the game to be destroyed for unknown reasons. Despite its extremely narrow focus, it racked up over 20k views so far.

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Dragonsweeper

We also release videos on other people’s games. For example: Notable indie game developer Daniel Benmergui, of Story Teller fame has created a completely free, devilish and genius game called Dragonsweeper. It is a mashup of a fantasy roguelike and Minesweeper. (yes, really)

It works so well because of some very smart design ideas and excellent balancing. And frankly it is one of those productivity killers due to an irresistible one-more-go magic spell it effortlessly casts on you while you are figuring out an optimal run.

We liked it so much that we did a whole design feature video about it, as it fits our criteria nicely! We will release a follow up video soon.

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Looking Back at the Future

There are a lot of historic assets and experiences that we feel are relevant today, so we decided to start a series of videos that looks at this kind of content, and presents it in a modern relevant format. The first episode of this series covers a talk by Alex May and Rudolf at the Tokyo Gameshow Sense of Wonder Night. This video was mostly an experiment to see if the format works, and we haven’t promoted it that much, but that doesn’t matter.

We think it is a good approach and a new video (about an innovative RTS control scheme that Omni developed quite some time ago) is almost ready for release.

There are quite a few other videos available now, so if all this sounds interesting please have a look.

Also, if you have suggestions or requests for certain types of videos let us know. We may well go for it!

Omni News Roundup

Since it has been quite some time since we sent the old-style newsletter there is actually a LOT of Omni news to report on. Here is a roundup. And it’s not even complete.

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Blog Posts

We are ramping up our blog posts frequency, and will do a little roundup of posts in each newsletter edition.

Recent examples include an interesting blog post looking back at our involvement with the Sense of Wonder Night at the Tokyo Game Show in 2011. This was a once in a lifetime opportunity and a very special memory for the team, not to mention an opportunity to take maaaany photos.

We also wrote a piece about the above mentioned wasp problem from Bioframe (We *really* hate wasps) and went into a lot more detail about the investigation, causes, and lessons we’ve learned from this rather unique problem. It is a fascinating example of the sometimes unpredictable consequences of a highly emergent game design.

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A new Eufloria Universe Game

Yessss, this is actually happening. We are finishing the next Eufloria universe game, and hope to announce it soon. It takes all the themes of Eufloria and translates them into a pretty original concept where you can control the evolution of your Euflorian Seed Ship, grow (literally on trees) and command followers, and plant cool and helpful organic assets inside a mysterious alien installation. Have a look at these early glimpses, and this newsletter-exclusive early footage.

For those of you who want to sign up early to the next closed beta, feel free to reach out via our Discord.

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Bioframe Outpost Release

For those who missed it, Bioframe Outpost**, our super deep, ecosystem manipulating, photography-based metroid-vania, launched back in November. Oh my it was a ride… but it’s out and we are very proud of it. We somehow released it on pretty much every major platform so there is lots of choice.

**previously known as “Starlit”

We just released a video about the game here if you want to know more.

GIVEAWAY ALERT! We are giving away a free copy to ten newsletter readers. Claim it by filling out this short form. (The password is newsletter).

First come first serve. :-)

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Steam Deck Verified

Bioframe Outpost was originally planned as a PlayStation Vita game, and while I am a little sad that this never actually happened I can find solace in the fact that the game is now fully Steam Deck verified, so you can tackle the perils of Nova Aurora wherever you go. It is one of my own favourite ways of playing the game (and yes I still play it myself) and frankly I am a fan of the platform. It runs smooth as butter on it and the screen suits the game well. So, if you own a deck you may want to give it a go. (There is a demo)​

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Eufloria Classic Beta Test

The upcoming anniversary release of Eufloria has entered open beta. If you'd like to help us test the game, please sign up via our Discord. There is a really nice community already involved in this, composed of historic fans, modders, new gamers, and errr… ourselves.

It’s a strong release that adds new game modes and music to OG Eufloria, and crucially, brings back modding for the first time in many years!

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Indie Showcase

We were also delighted to learn that Bioframe Outpost was one of the ten games chosen for the Indie Showcase finalist at Develop:Brighton 2025.

You can learn all about the other awesome nominations ​here.

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Reddit r/vita AMA

The kind folks over at r/vita allowed us to host an AMA (Ask me anything) about the PlayStation Vita edition of Eufloria. This was a lot of fun. Getting to talk about this often overlooked part of Eufloria history was fantastic, and you can still read the full thread ​here!

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Games Industry News

Since this first newsletter is already megaaaa long, we are saving it for the next one. However, we would love to know what kind of news is actually of interest to our readers so do let us know!

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Gamedev Resources Roundup

Sometimes we run into some super useful resources that we think might benefit other devs or gamers as well, so we decided to do a regular roundup of lesser known examples. Do let us know if you have your own tips to share.

Let's go!

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This Month's Pick: Backloggd​

Want to log and/or review the games you play? Read other fans’ take on games? Avoid most of the social media toxicity that plagues other channels? This site does a really decent job. It’s modelled after​ Letterboxd, which some of you may already be familiar with.

There are tons of ways to filter and order content, which makes it a much more powerful tool for finding information or discovering cool games than standard review sites. Also, this is purely by and for actual fans, so no clickbaity nonsense.

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Honourable Mentions

​​Indie Game​ ​Clinic​ ​

(New-ish and already well-established channel that analyses and comments on indie games in a lot of detail)

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​How to Market A Game​

Super informed site and newsletter dedicated to giving indie devs actionable advice on… well you can guess that, right?

One of the newsletters that we ourselves subscribe to.

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​We Love Every Game​​

Laudable site and initiative to break through the discoverability problem that so many game devs are faced with. It gives gamers all kinds of ways to discover games that they are potentially interested in, but are hidden from them by the evil algo. Try it here.

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​​Sullygnome​

Sullygnome is an extremely powerful analytical tool for finding and tracking Twitch streamers, if you’re trying to find content creators to cover your games we cannot recommend this tool enough!

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Grab Bag

(Where we share random stuff with you)

Films/TV Shows Based on Games

We love to hate them but also love to love them. Rather than the standard moaning about bad adaptations we thought it a good idea to share reviews of ones that ARE worth watching.

Case in point: J-Horrror classic ​“St. John’s Wort”​ from 2001.

Here is an excerpt from Rudolf’s rather enthusiastic and typo-laden review:

Sounds good right? Read the full review ​here​.​

Other notable successes are the ​Fatal Frame​ (J-horror again) movie and the amazing ​Halt and Catch Fire​ tv show which we think has the most accurate and engrossing depiction of early computer and gaming startup vibes EVAR.

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Fan Submissions of the Month

Every month we pick something cool that was created in our fan community and shine a light on it.

This time it’s a rather sweet image created by Clettuce called “Reflourish the World”

Thank you Clettuce, you hereby receive the Game Invention Badge of Fan Excellence!

If you dear reader want to be considered for this dubious honour do send us your creations.

Goodies

Every month we stuff this bag with new goodies for fans and fellow travellers. Here are this edition’s offerings: containing a mishmash of rare and historic images and videos from Bioframe, Eufloria, Dyson, Eufloria Adventures, Neopolis, Spire… The material is quite diverse, covering Dev Media, Concepts, Comics, Tests… have a look and let us know what you think?

You can view this content online or you can download the .zip here!​

Additionally, we also offer access to our hidden goodie page (The password is LOVEGAMES) where even more cool free stuff can be found. Seriously, no signups or crappy marketing stuff. Just nice goodies.

Signing off for now

“ That’s it for now! See you all next edition for more of the same as well as new flavours. Hopefully you will find it worth your time.*** Please reach out via email or our Discord with feedback and ideas. We’d love to hear from you. — Rudolf Kremers

***We really do care about your time, and have written a mission statement to explain how we try to deliver on that.

Mission Statement

Why, How & What is Game Invention?

First: A personal statement, explaining the “Why” of game invention:

The big tech recommendation algorithm has ruined much of what made the internet great for indie game developers and fans alike. Our old connections to each other have been broken or corrupted. Highly personal blogs, community forums, mailing lists, RSS Feeds…and so on, mostly consumed by the endless stream of Twitter, Tik Tok, Facebook, Etc. Algo-recommended outrage, engagement farming, manipulative, short term marketing driven, like-and-subscribe hunting, anti human bs.

Everywhere we go online we are bombarded with aggressive ugly content, and crucially, the algorithm shoves it in our faces while pushing actually good human-facing content out of the way, never to be seen again. This is bad for artists and this is bad for people who enjoy art. It is an existential threat for artists because they can’t get their content to people who would enjoy it, and inversely, an appreciative audience is actively shielded from this content.

The game is rigged.

So, what can we do to fix this?

Well, at Omni we have thought hard about this, and ultimately decided on a simple but by no means easy course of action:

1: We refuse to play a rigged game. We won’t participate in the “attention economy” wherein social media platforms are controlled by tech giants that don’t give a jot about you or me. We don’t want to chase virality, meme power, clickbait headlines, or cynical cheap marketing tricks. Playing that game diminishes us all, so no thank you.

2: Instead, we will treat our audience with respect, by creating content that might actually interest them, through communication channels where they are able to choose the content they wish to see themselves.

This human-facing approach is the basis for Game Invention. This is the “How” of Game Invention

That leaves the “What” of the story…

Well, the “WHAT” is quite a lot!

It is this newsletter, but rather than offering standard marketing dross it is meant to reward subscribers with exclusive and fun content like free concept art from our games, early access to game builds, sneak previews of yet to be released stuff, behind the scenes looks at our projects, stories we can’t share in public, opportunities for feedback and input in our creations, gifts, articles about our work and so on.

But also exciting content that is NOT about us, meant to elevate other indies or share useful resources or anything else we feel might benefit you and make subscribing to this newsletter worthwhile.

It is also our YouTube channel, which is expanding all the time with videos and shorts that genuinely offer high quality, interesting insights and knowledge. Stuff that takes time and effort to create and is actually worth your time.

And it is also our blog posts, our Discord, our Reddit Posts, and maybe in the future we will branch out to other channels too.

Regardless, the central mission is always to offer something worthwhile, and to present it in a human and friendly way. Hopefully we can earn your trust to give our content your time.