GG's 2025 Game of the Year: Pudgy Party - Decrypt

In brief Pudgy Party has attracted over 1 million downloads while maintaining a 4.9 Apple App Store rating. It adds to what made Fall Guys such a smash hit, infusing viral memes with a crypto underbelly waiting to explode. That's why the Pudgy Penguins mobile battle royale is GG's 2025 Game of the Year. Pudgy Party delivers a premium mobile gaming experience that the Pudgy Penguins team intends to make one of the franchise's core pillars moving forward-and it is GG ’s 2025 Game of the Year. Mythical Games , the studio behind Pudgy Party and other crypto games like NFL Rivals and FIFA Rivals, said that Pudgy Party has reached 1 million installs since its September release, while maintaining a 4.9-star rating on the Apple App Store. In doing this, Pudgy Penguins CEO Luca Netz told Decrypt that the game has acted as an onboarding tool for the popular crypto-native IP that started as an Ethereum NFT collection. In fact, he even believes a recent increase in toy sales can be attributed to the game’s release. But these statistical and financial wins only surface if the game is genuinely good-and it really is. Pudgy Party takes the popular casual battle royale concept from hit game Fall Guys, squishes it down into a mobile format, and evolves its gameplay elements. This creates a familiar, yet expanded gameplay experience that is perfect for casual mobile gaming. As the cherry on top, Pudgy Party gracefully interacts with third-party IPs, including the Italian Brainrot universe, as a way to both engage its core fanbase and bring new players into the ecosystem. And this is just the beginning-or so its creators claim. “It’s brought more people into the huddle, and it's created a product that more of our fans can enjoy and share with their family,” Netz told Decrypt . “[Once] we start scaling, the goal is that Pudgy Party lives and exists as one of our core franchise products that hopefully has 100 million plus downloads.” The game Pudgy Party is a free-to-play game in which up to 20 players compete against each other in mini-games, weave their way through obstacle courses, and race to the finish line in each fresh challenge. Each round, players are eliminated until one Pudgy Penguin is left standing and crowned the victor. Where Pudgy Party evolves on the tried-and-true Fall Guys concept is by giving characters unique abilities that can be unlocked over time. Not only does this give the title a much-needed feeling of progression, but it also creates room for creativity and skill expression in an otherwise hyper-casual environment. “We’ve kept the core loop deliberately approachable, but not shallow. The trick has been layering strategic depth without scaring newcomers off,” John Linden , CEO of Mythical Games, told Decrypt . “The abilities system has become the stealth MVP here-it gives veterans room to flex and experiment without breaking the pick-up-and-play charm that drew people in.” To keep that balance between casual and competitive, the game...

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