GaMaYo #24 will take place on the 22nd May 2025 and be hosted at Project House, Leeds. With over 30 games being showcased and 300+ developers, game industry publishers, investors and platforms in attendance, stay tuned to see who will be showcasing.

This event is brought to you by Game Republic along with their Official Partners Barclays Games and Creative, Plus Accounting and Red Kite Games

Today we are looking at ‘Mineral’ which is confirmed to be at the event, from Xitol!

Mineral by Xitol

What would be your description of your game?

Mineral is a minimalist zen puzzle game, designed as a relaxing but challenging experience, taking you through 5 unique realms, with varying levels of difficulty, challenge and mechanics.

In Mineral you control a physics bound energy orb; collecting energy crystals to unlock portals to new levels and these unique realms, each level has its own selection of secrets and collectables to gather to maximise your orb’s energy levels.

Each environment is designed with a minimalist neon setting, each realm providing its own take and setting. Play across these 5 unique realms, along with extra challenge levels to test your skill and control.

How did development start? (Were there any key inspirations or ideas that drove you?)

We wanted to create a simple yet enjoyable game that most people could jump in and play. We chose Mineral out of several ideas we had for a debut game as the concept appealed to us the most at the time, marble/ball games are quite simple, fun and a genre where people could jump in and play as a break from other games.

We’re also a big fan of puzzle and platformer games, and we have tried to combine bits of each within Mineral.

Tell us about the team behind the game!

Xitol is a team of 2 brothers, Jamie and Kris. Both of us have studied Game Design at University (Jamie at SHU, and Kris at Confetti/NTU) and both of us also have Masters Degrees in Games fields. Jamie focuses on the Production and Design, whilst Kris primarily focuses on Code and UI.

Jamie is also a Teacher of Computer Science and Game Design alongside Xitol, whereas Kris is full time on Game Development.

We’ve also had help with the polish of Mineral and Sound Effects from our friends Trevor and Steve who have acted as freelancers at stages across the project to help us speed up development, improve levels visually (lighting and composition) and create Audio for us!

What kind of experiences do you hope to bring players?

We hope to bring players a relaxing, fun but challenging experience that they can enjoy as a break from other games or as a short game to play for those who enjoy puzzle-platformer games.

Mineral is packed with collectables and replayability which we hope will bring satisfaction to completionists who discover and obtain all the collectables and secrets within Mineral.