Media Circus Announcement (you play as a squirrel!)

[IBJamon]

Media Circus Announcement (you play as a squirrel!)

Cologne, August 12th, 2025 – Papercoda Games, an indie women-led studio focused on making impactful games, is thrilled to announce their new project - Media Circus - a unique narrative-strategy game where you launch a newspaper as its editor-in-chief, and try to survive the cutthroat news business in a satirical animal world!

Media Circus won Best Spiel Award at the Indie Game Fest 2025 based on audience votes, and will be part of the Games for Democracy stall in the Indie Arena Booth at Gamescom 2025.

Its early demo has been winning hearts and minds at game festivals and conventions such as A MAZE. / Berlin 2025, DoKomi 2025 and Reboot Develop Blue 2025. Players loved that the game let them “publish anything they want”, tempted them to “sell their soul” and even allowed them to “do propaganda”.

Media Circus is inspired by the designer’s personal experience working on news desks and her disillusionment due to the industry’s attenuation. “We made this game because we want to remind everyone what’s at stake when the Fourth Estate falters,” said the team at Papercoda, “But we also want to do it in a way that’s engaging, thought-provoking, and — above all — fun.”



About the Game

Media Circus - Control the Story, Control the World!

Launch your newspaper and sway the masses in a unique animal world! Direct reporters, plan stories, blow up Headlines for Impact and throw in Ads for Profit. With every faction gunning for a piece of your front page, how far will you go to keep your paper in print — and yourself out of trouble?

Platforms: PC (first), Consoles (future)
Engine: Godot

Planned Release: Early 2027

Steam Page Link: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3868010/Media_Circus
Website: https://papercoda.carrd.co/

Key Features:

Plan your Newspaper - Choose what becomes News! - creative newspaper designing mechanics let you control what becomes news and how much it impacts your fictional world.

Grow your Influence - your newspaper is a business. Attract readers, secure profits and beat your competition to grow your influence and bank balance.

Manipulate a funny animal world - an innovative modular narrative system ensures the world reacts minutely to your editorial, narrative & financial choices and strategies, resulting in high replayability!

Forge your Identity - Will you be a money-spinning tabloid, serious investigative journal, a propaganda mouthpiece, or something in between? Your actions and impact will result in hundreds of unique stories and endings.

About Papercoda Games:

With the motto ‘Decoding our World through Play’, Papercoda Games was founded by three diverse multimedia artists with a shared mission: to create fun, accessible games that address complex real-world issues and offer mindful entertainment to engage with our times.

Our studio has been supported by The Game Starter Foundry and Mediengründerzentrum NRW and the concept and prototype for our game Media Circus was funded by Film-und Medienstiftung NRW.