The verdict is out! The MSXdev25 game competition has reached its apex, and the final results are here. Every submitted game was thoroughly examined, judged, scored, and ranked by the expert jury, leading to a clear conclusion. Another epic chapter wrapped up with fantastic results.
When the MSXdev25 competition kicked off in September 2025, contestants had six months to forge an exclusive game for the platform. Being another “Freestyle” edition, developers could go all out and use any available MSX hardware to pack their games with features. And they did – with 50 entries, the MSXdev25 event proved to be a great platform to showcase and enjoy MSX games.
Being a jury member at MSXdev isn’t always a walk in the park. It’s fun, absolutely…but easy? Not quite. Judging a massive stack of 50 new games in just a few weeks, and writing a solid report about each, takes real dedication. Thankfully, we had exactly the right people for the job. This year’s panel of MSX experts did an outstanding job, ensuring every game was thoroughly rated and ranked.
Right now, you’ll probably be like “just the facts, ma’am!” – Sure, sure, hold your jolly horses. Here we go!
With 290 out of 300 points, the award for the best overall MSXdev25 game reward goes to:
“Neon Horizon” by Norakomi & Wolf
The jurors were nothing but impressed with this game, and ranked it number one. A true masterpiece that showcases craftmanship, is technically sublime, polished, has a great soundtrack, visually stunning and most important keeps you coming back for more.
It goes without saying that all contestants of MSXdev25 have done a fantastic job, and we congratulate each and every one of you as true winners. You embody the spirit that keeps the MSX legacy alive and continue to bring fresh content. A heartfelt bow to you all.
The final report of MSXdev25 includes all the jurors’ scores and evaluations, along with ranking lists of every game in each category. You can check out this report as a PDF file right here:
With a contest comes prizes, and we’ve got plenty this year. As always, MSXdev welcomes donations and sponsored items for contestants to win. This year’s contributions total 750 euros, generously given by MSX fans from around the globe. On top of that, there’s a box full of sponsored goodies to hand out. And to sweeten the deal, every contestant gets the latest digital edition of the BrewOtaku magazine. Pretty cool, huh!
And with that, we hope you have all enjoyed this years edition of MSXdev as much as we have!
Before we wrap up, a big thank you to everyone – you, the MSX fans, for your endless support; all participants for joining; the jury members for their judging work; the sponsors for their contributions; the donors for, well, donating to the cause; the magazines for their interest; MSXall and Konamito for the web services; The File Hunter for hosting games online; Raul for text editing; and, last but not least, all the amazing people who have influenced MSXdev in any way. Can we also thank ourselves for hosting the show? Well, maybe we can 🙂
It has been an honor working with all of you, it is pure magic.
See you at MSXdev26!
Sander Niessen & Róman van der Meulen – organizing party of MSXdev25
