Wishlist Now: 'Spiny & Chilly' Brings Odd Platforming to Steam

If you’ve been craving a platformer that looks like it was dreamed up after a long night of playing Earthworm Jim and watching old Cartoon Network bumpers, Spiny & Chilly might be your next obsession. The game is now available to wishlist on Steam, even though it’s still in development. And yes, that’s the whole news—but as with most indie titles, the real story is in the why.

Why This Oddball Platformer Matters Right Now

On the surface, a Steam wishlist launch for an unproven indie game is a drop in an ocean of 15,000+ new releases per year. But here’s the thing: wishlists are the new gold standard for discoverability. Valve’s algorithm heavily favors games with high wishlist counts around launch, giving them prime real estate on the storefront. So when a tiny team like the one behind Spiny & Chilly drops a wishlist page months before release, they’re not just being polite—they’re playing the platform’s game.

More importantly, the game itself is a deliberate throwback to the era of weird, experimental platformers—think Jazz Jackrabbit or Boogerman—but with modern movement tech. That’s a niche that’s been underserved since the rise of hyper-polished indie darlings like Celeste and Hollow Knight.

How We Got Here: The Rise of the “Odd Platformer”

After the Super Meat Boy boom, platformers split into two camps: tight, precision-based runners and sprawling Metroidvanias. The weird, funny, almost-janky side of the genre faded. But in the last couple of years, a counter-movement has emerged. Games like Thank Goodness You’re Here! and Antonblast proved that players are hungry for offbeat tone and unconventional mechanics. Spiny & Chilly fits squarely into that revival—its trailer shows a cartoon hedgehog and a penguin bouncing through levels that deliberately break platforming logic.

The developer, a small team called Mishmash Games, hasn’t shared much publicly. But the Steam page reveals a few key details: the game will feature co-op play, a physics system that rewards chaotic movement, and a visual style that mixes hand-drawn sprites with 3D environments. It’s scrappy, but it’s intentional.

The Key Detail: That Wishlist Count

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Here’s the concrete number: as of writing, Spiny & Chilly has around 1,200 wishlists on Steam. That’s modest, but it’s early days. For comparison, indie hits that break out often need 10,000–20,000 wishlists before launch to crack the top sellers. The team is likely hoping that word of mouth and the game’s strange charm will push that number up before they announce a release date.

If you’re a fan of the genre, adding it now isn’t a bad idea—it’s free, and it helps the algorithm pay attention. And if the game flops, you’ll just get a “now available” email you can ignore.

The Bigger Picture: Indie Survival in a Crowded Market

Steam’s wishlist system is a microcosm of the entire indie economy. In 2024, the average successful indie game had a wishlist-to-sales conversion rate of roughly 15–20%. That means a game with 5,000 wishlists might sell 800–1,000 copies on launch day—enough to break even for a tiny team, but not enough to survive if development took two years. The math is brutal, and it’s why you see so many developers begging for wishlists on social media.

But Spiny & Chilly has an advantage: its distinct visual identity and genre blend make it easy to clip for TikTok or YouTube. If the movement feels as good as the trailer suggests, it could ride the “odd platformer” wave that’s building momentum. The bigger question is whether Mishmash Games can sustain that momentum through development and into the launch window.

What’s Next

No release date has been announced yet. The Steam page lists a “Coming Soon” tag, and the developer has been quiet on social media. That’s common for small teams—they’re probably still crunching on levels, balancing the physics, and hoping the wishlist count doesn’t flatline. For now, you can add it to your list, watch the trailer, and wait. If the game delivers on its promise, it could be a sleeper hit for the weird-plat community. If not, well, there’s always next month’s dozen other wishlist pleas.