Bargain Bin Gaymers

Davey and Mitch hit the show floor at PAX Aus 2026 in Melbourne and came back with seven indie games you should have on your radar. Recorded as the doors opened on Friday morning, this is a run of quick chats with the developers themselves, from Kiwi studios on their first trip across the ditch to a Brisbane favourite who is now a friend of the pod.In this episode:

• Star Catcher: a cosy co-op fishing adventure where you catch lost souls on a sea of stars (once Davey stops jumping into it)
• GO PHISH: Go Fish meets social engineering, where you hack strangers to make $10,000 rent in a week
• Canvas City: a turn based tactics RPG on roller skates, with a free demo on Steam now
• Dungeon Pizza: Cooking Mama meets Dungeon Meshi, with wriggling rat tails and a basement slime that makes your dough
• Pie in the Sky: the Australian magpie swooping simulator you never knew you needed, out now
• Vanguard Exiles: a catch up with friend of the pod Seth ahead of the 1.0 launch in February
• Primordials: a fast take that card game for up to six players, freshly funded on Gamefound

]Wishlist, play and support:
Star Catcher: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3993790/Star_Catcher/
GO PHISH: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3909150/GO_PHISH/
Canvas City: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3226830/Canvas_City/
Dungeon Pizza: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3834910/Dungeon_Pizza/
Pie in the Sky: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2941360/Pie_in_the_Sky/
Vanguard Exiles: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2745490/Vanguard_Exiles/
Primordials on Gamefound: https://gamefound.com/projects/masterforge-games/primordials?refcode=lO-GhAJJcEuZ5pow1jdWBA

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Davey is flying solo without Mitch this week, joined by Alex Bestie from Australian indie game marketing outfit The IndiEXP for an honest look at how small games actually get found. In this episode: • How Alex went from chasing a narrative design career to co-founding an indie games PR business after a single Melbourne International Games Week coffee chat that never happened

• What The IndiEXP actually does for a game, and why talking to a marketer eight months out costs a dev less than talking to one eight weeks out
• The creator campaign behind cozy crossword adventure Rita, including custom-built levels for ten streamers and the fake level people still ask to play
• Why TikTok's 1,000 follower threshold matters more than any single video, and why buying followers will get you nowhere
• The campaign that hit over a million views, and the accidental Sword Art Online sound that carried it
• Trends, SEO signals and how to tell someone a game is cozy without saying the word cozy
• Why queer indie games are underrepresented on agency rosters, and what Alex wants to do about it
• Slayblade, the Y2K battle-top roguelite from Henry's House that Alex cannot stop talking about
• Big Walk, Mass Effect 3, Fallout 4, Gris, and a pile of shame featuring 007 First Light

Watch the video version on YouTube: https://youtu.be/9NZGsdbihdc
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Full show notes: https://bargainbingaymer.com
Email the show: [email protected]

Bargain Bin Gaymers is an LGBTQ+ gaming podcast hosted by Davey and Mitch, two Melbourne based gaymers reviewing affordable games, interviewing queer indie developers, and covering the latest news from across the LGBTQIA+ gaming community.
New episodes every Tuesday.

Jake from the Melbourne Gaymers is back on the couch, and this week the topic is one every adult gamer eventually runs into. You love games. Your partner does not. How do you make that work? Between the three of them there is a husband who throws the controller at Mario Party's random bonus stars, a boyfriend who claims to be a gamer but owns a PS5 and neither a TV nor a couch, and a partner who occasionally tinkers with a horror game alone because the host who bought it for him is too scared to watch. In this episode:

• The guilt problem. Davey games at 5:30am on weekends because he feels bad playing when Anthony is in the house, and admits most of that guilt is self imposed
• Rot time, Mitch's term for sitting in the same room doing completely different things, and why it counts as quality time
• Why handheld gaming changed all of this, and whether a dedicated games room is a dream or a trap
• What happens when a partner is actively anti gaming, and how this podcast came out of that
• Gaming as escapism, decompression and genuine emotional regulation, and how to explain that to someone who has never needed it
• Booking it in. Davey has the GTA 6 release weekend blocked out in the shared family calendar
• Teaching a partner who did not grow up gaming, including the moment Jake realised Adrian needed inverted controls
• Finding games for your partner rather than dragging them into yours
• Whether queer couples are better at this, and why
• Mitch on designing his own Pokémon game, and telling his boyfriend about it
• The big question: would you actually want a gamer partner? All three say no, and explain why
• Why watching someone else play a game means you will never play it yourself
• Housemates, shared TVs, and the other relationships nobody talks about

Plus advice at the end for anyone in a new relationship trying to work out how to have this conversation. Tell us where you land. Are you a gaming couple? Does your partner just like watching you play? Comment on YouTube or come and talk to us in the Discord.

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Heads up before you press play: this is a watch-along.

Davey and Mitch are commenting live on the Zelda 40th anniversary Nintendo Direct as it plays, so this one is best enjoyed on YouTube. The audio still works, but you will get a lot more out of watching it. Watch the video version: HERE

A bonus drop, recorded on the couch on a Saturday afternoon with Pike the dog, because Nintendo announced the Ocarina of Time remake during the week and there was no way of waiting until the next episode. The setup is the best one this show has: Davey has played Ocarina of Time more times than he can count, on the N64, on the Master Quest disc, on the Wii Virtual Console, on the 3DS and on Nintendo Switch Online. Mitch has never touched it. Before recording, Davey sat him down with the original on Switch Online, CRT filter on, and walked him through Kokiri Forest, Hyrule Field and Castle Town. Mitch's verdict on the 1998 version was, in a word, hideous. Then they watched the Direct together. In this episode:

• Why Ocarina of Time is the game that made Davey fall in love with gaming, and why Twilight Princess was Mitch's way in
• Mitch's honest reaction to playing the N64 original for the first time in 2026, including a genuine appreciation for how individual every NPC in Castle Town is
• The first look at Kokiri Forest, and why it stopped both of them dead
• Child Link's new design, the doll-like face, and the glossiness debate
• Camera control and manual jumping, and why both are a much bigger deal than they sound
• The loading screens Nintendo kept deliberately, and whether being faithful is the real reason
• Two minutes to dry off after a swim, and Navi's embroidered wings
• The new item wheel replacing the C button hotkeys
• Hyrule Field, Death Mountain actually looking like a volcano, and Castle Town giving off Fable meets D&D energy
• The Threads of Time tapestry, a new way of tracking progress
• The day night cycle now running inside towns
• Being able to hum your ocarina songs instead of memorising button combinations, or order an actual ocarina peripheral
• Voice acting in cutscenes, and the Zelda voice problem
• The 40th anniversary concert coming to Melbourne next May
• The special edition Switch 2 console and dock, already sold out, already being scalped

Out 5 November 2026. Both of them are more excited about this than GTA 6. Tell us what you think of Link's new design in the YouTube comments or in the Discord. Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/fqC2FeHSUr
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Jake from the Melbourne Gaymers joins Davey and Mitch on the couch for the September yapisode, two vodka Cokes deep and ready to go. September is the business end of 2026 and there is a lot to get through. What we have been playing:

• Jake on Fallout 76, which is apparently good now, and replaying Halo one through five on Legendary in split screen
• Mitch on Darksiders Warmastered Edition, Mark Hamill, and the sexy part of Catholicism. Plus a Bloodborne replay and the case for it being a top three game
• Davey on picking up Grand Theft Auto 5 for $20 on disc at JB Hi-Fi, thirteen years after he last played it, and worrying he will be over GTA before November
• Everspace 2 on Switch 2, the three endings of The Adventures of Elliot, and why Davey has turned on Duskfade after being excited about it

News of note:

• Mario Kart 8 Deluxe gets a surprise Switch 2 update out of nowhere, with 4K output and eight player split screen on one console
• Gamescom, and everyone's picks: Stage Tour from the original Guitar Hero team, Rainbow Six Tactics, Gears of War E-Day, Crazy Taxi World Tour, Fable, RollerCoaster Tycoon, Silent Hill Townfall and more
• Witcher 3 Remastered, free if you already own the game, and why CD Projekt Red has set a bar everyone else is falling short of
• Mitch on the soulslike problem, and why he is done with games that rip off Dark Souls with barely a change of paint
• The PlayStation State of Play, where the best part was the live chat. Sony killing physical media, the shift from buying to leasing, and a PlayStation 1 Lego set that is about as useful as a Blu-ray player in 2028
• Xbox disc to digital, how it actually works, and whether it is a genuine consumer win or just warming us up for a digital only future
• Delisted games, Pokémon Home behind a paywall, and what any of us actually own

Plus the full Release Radar for 8 to 22 September, and a Bargain Watchlist featuring A Plague Tale: Innocence at 90 percent off, Cyberpunk 2077 on Switch 2 for $50, and Inside for $3.50. Jake is back next episode to talk about gaming as adults with non gaming partners.

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Davey is flying solo one more time, and this week he is talking to someone building something that arguably should have existed years ago. Kevin is the founder of Gamily, a dating and friendship app built for gamers with LGBTQIA people front and centre. He built it with his husband Will and their co-founder Gabe, starting as a nights-and-weekends project during the pandemic, on the premise that the best way to get to know somebody is by playing with them. In this episode:

• What Gamily is, who it is for, and the gap Kevin saw between apps for gay people, apps for straight people that merely allow gay people, and apps for nerds
• Why there is both a dating mode and a friends mode, and why they are kept completely separate
• Squeezing into a crowded dating app market, and why niche apps are having a moment
• What people are actually looking for when they want a partner who games, and why being able to pretend together as adults is rarer than it should be
• How the matching works, from the four games you are playing right now to unlimited favourites, board games and genres, with conversation starters built in
• The technical challenge of designing gender identity properly, so it is not just man seeking man or man seeking woman
• Why Gamily does not sell data, track users or run ads, and why that matters more when your users hold vulnerable identities
• Where the app is now, why New York City is the current focus, and what it would take to reach Australia
• Success stories so far, including a Valorant team and a queer streamer squad
• The feedback that genuinely surprised him, and what it says about what people will trade for free
• Why marketing turned out to be the hardest part, and the message that finally worked

Plus Kevin on EarthBound, The Binding of Isaac and Mario Kart, and a pile of shame that includes 80 hours of Elden Ring and 75 per cent of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

Gamily is available now in the US and Canada at gamilyapp.com, and on Instagram at @gamilyapp. 

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A bonus drop. Davey and Mitch were not supposed to record this week, but Rockstar dropped a nearly 30 minute Grand Theft Auto 6 Extended Look on Netflix and there was no way around it. Recorded on Davey's couch on Sunday afternoon, immediately after watching it together. Unstructured, unfiltered, and genuinely conflicted. In this episode:

• The Netflix exclusive that lasted about six minutes before the whole thing was everywhere anyway
• Mitch's verdict after his first viewing: consider him advertised, but not sold
• Why it looks phenomenal, and why it also looks extremely familiar
• The 30fps confirmation, the missing performance mode, and what "for now" tends to mean
• The Watch Dogs effect, the Cyberpunk comparison, and whether a showcase is ever an honest picture of a finished game
• Jason and Lucia, the seamless character swapping, and a relationship you have to actually maintain
• The corrupt task force, Mendez, and GTA doing what GTA always does with law enforcement
• Whether anything here is a genuine evolution or a very expensive GTA 5 that looks better
• The bigger worry: a game this universal being used to push digital only, no physical, and the argument currently in court that buying a game does not mean owning it
• Australian classification, and why drug use as a gameplay perk is still the line the board draws
• GTA's tumultuous history with LGBTQIA representation, and what it means to release this game in 2026
• Davey on week one of PlayStation Blackout, and the awkward timing of all this

Plus the real November question: GTA 6 or the Ocarina of Time remake? We want to hear from you. Are you a day one buyer? Is this enough of an evolution to be worth it? Leave a comment on YouTube or come and argue with us in the Discord.

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Davey is flying solo again, and this week the show goes somewhere it has only ever skirted the edges of. Joel Medina is a writer for GAYMING Magazine and the Los Angeles Blade, and a dedicated tabletop RPG player. In this episode:

• What actually happens at a TTRPG session.
• The imagination problem, and why "I'm not creative enough" is the wrong reason to stay away
• The biggest misconception about TTRPG spaces.
• What Stranger Things got right and wrong about Dungeons and Dragons
• Why campaigns run so long.
• It is not all high fantasy. Call of Cthulhu, Monster of the Week, Girl by Moonlight, and systems built for horror, sci-fi, romance and drama
• Why the community always needs more Dungeon Masters.
• The inherent queerness of TTRPGs.
• How to actually get started, with podcast recommendations, Discord servers and groups worth looking up in LA, Melbourne and across Australia

 Find Joel's work at GAYMING Magazine and the Los Angeles Blade.

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Mitch is back in the studio after several weeks of being aggressively unwell, which means he has actually finished some games for once. It is a yapisode, and August has given us plenty to yap about.Davey and Mitch cover what they have been playing, the news that has them both riled up, everything releasing before the end of August, and the bargains worth grabbing right now.What we have been playing:

• NieR: Automata on Switch 2, and Mitch's nine out of ten verdict on a game he describes as existential dread at 2am
• Bleach: Soul Resonance, finished, free, and not a cent spent
• Darksiders Warmastered Edition on Switch 2, currently $9.99 AUD, which is cheaper than a pint in Windsor
• Halo: Campaign Evolved, and why a 25 year old game holding up beautifully does not excuse $79 AUD and performance issues on base PS5
• Pocopia and the Bubbly Basin DLC, which has dragged Davey right back in
• Duskfade, the double A love letter to PS2 era action platformers
• Agent 64: Spies Never Die, which Davey is calling the best way to play GoldenEye in 2026
• Pro Jank Footy, the 16 bit AFL roguelike with Broden from Aunty Donna on commentary

News of note:

• Sony doubles down on ending physical media, and the PS5 boxes now carrying an important notice sticker
• PlayStation Blackout, the week long boycott organised by preservation group Does It Play, running 23 to 30 August. Davey and Mitch are torn on whether it will achieve anything
• The GTA 6 extended look premiering exclusively on Netflix on 27 August before hitting YouTube six hours later, and why Mitch calls it the frog in the pot
• The Steam Machine launch, the eye watering pricing, and why neither of us had even heard about it
• Super Mario Sunshine arrives on Nintendo Switch Online
• Zelda movie casting news, including Uli Latukefu as Ganondorf

Plus the full Release Radar for the rest of August and a Bargain Watchlist featuring the Telltale Choices Matter Festival, a Kingdom Hearts sale, and Beyond: Two Souls for $1.49 AUD.

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Davey is flying solo at for a chat with two guests who are, frankly, serious gamer couple goals. Max and Pablo are Cowboy Toad Games, the boyfriend team behind 2024's Nocturnals, the game that kicked off this podcast's love affair with LGBTQIA+ developed games. They're back with the sequel, Nocturnals: Cacti Coast, currently in development for a 2027 release. Max returns for his second appearance on the show, and Pablo joins for the first time. In this episode:

• What it actually feels like to have your partner make a video game as a love letter to you, and why Pablo says the more valuable thing was the two of them landing their dream job
• The moment they realised Nocturnals was going to be a career and not just a passion project
• The new companion system: characters who travel with you, whose interests sometimes conflict, and who can be absent from your playthrough entirely
• Choosing where to go, including the slaughterhouse, and why location choice makes each player's story their own
• Keeping Ted grounded while adding stealth, because he's a scared young man and not James Bond
• Writing characters who are so closely based on yourselves that a fan wiki lists Ted and Diego as a real couple living in Cornwall
• Meeting Izzy, the bratty new companion voiced by Max's little sister, plus Randy and Maria
• The lessons from the first game's spaghetti code, and how better organisation now means a dialogue change takes three seconds instead of a re-render
• Playtesting revelations, including the friend who kept walking straight into the cannibals
• How Pablo's soundtrack is evolving: real instruments, proper software, and recurring character motifs this time around
• Why Cacti Coast is worth the wait to 2027, and what the extra time buys, including localisation, mobile done properly from the ground up, and Ted's journal system
• The relationship question: how do you run a business, ship a game and stay boyfriends? Areas of responsibility, honest expectations, and a hard stop at the end of the working day

Play the original Nocturnals on Steam or mobile, and follow Cacti Coast development on the Cowboy Toad Games Discord.

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