Silicon Dreams: a hidden gem! (Too hidden for our liking)

Thank you, thank you, a million times thank you! In the week since launch there has been quite the surge in the number of deviant androids being interrogated! We appreciate each and every comment and review that you have left Silicon Dreams – we’ll be forever grateful to all of you who have reached out to show your support and spread the word. We’re thrilled and proud and humbled that so many of you believe in our little studio!

If you missed it in all the excitement, you can grab the game from Steam, or it’s also available from itch.

When press have played it, they’ve reacted somewhere between “The writing is great but it’s quite rough around the edges” to “it’s a multi-layered masterpiece”, which is wonderful! Sadly the larger press outlets haven’t taken much interest, although we’re very grateful that PC Gamer included it in their weekly “5 Steam Games you might have Missed” roundup.

We were also fortunate enough to be positively reviewed by the legendary (can you say that about someone still alive?) John Walker, over on his hidden-gems-discovery-site Buried Treasure. We were gobsmacked by lines like “the credits rolled, and damn, it was perfect.”, “this is the most extraordinary narrative juggling act” and “this one’s a must.” We are very, very happy that people are connecting with the game and seeing that it’s special, despite its flaws.

The sad reality is, however, that we’re a tiny studio releasing our first game, and getting any sort of attention (especially on Steam, doubly so for an indie narrative game) is a tall order. Despite this attention the game is still nowhere near selling well enough to ensure long-term studio survival, which we think is a shame! We’d like to keep making quirky, unusual games that really connect with people, but without more sales that’s going to be extremely tricky.

If you’d like to help us out, the number one absolute best way is to leave a Steam review. This will show the almighty, inscrutable Steam algorithm that people care and that it’s worth showing to others! Right now we have 34 Steam reviews (not bad!) and every single one is positive (not bad at all!), but our Steam rating is sitting at merely “Positive” when it could be “Overwhelmingly positive”. We need more reviews to get there – Steam holds off judgment until a certain number are in, we don’t know how many – so if you’d like to help out and have enjoyed the game, a positive review would go a long way!

And if you haven’t played it yet, what are you waiting for? There’s a free demo! You’ve got nothing to lose!

This bird still has wings, but the skies are stormy…

Creating this game was a lot of hard work, but we’re so proud it’s finished, and it’s connecting with people! We’re excited to keep adding to the experience by making updates to improve functionality and address the bugs that you lovelies have found. [Jamie: Arh! Yes! I’m working on that!] We’re also really keen to add more characters to the game, but sadly that largely depends on whether we can afford to or not. If there’s enough interest in the game long-term, we want to get back to writing and expand on the world of Silicon Dreams by releasing DLC featuring more storylines – but right now, given the tough launch week, that looks unlikely.

We’re so proud and happy we made this game, and wouldn’t change it for the world – but it looks like the market for niche narrative games is even smaller than we thought!