Fiction Factory Games

Welcome to the official tumblr for Fiction Factory Games. This developer blog will give you updates about all our latest projects! We made Arcade Spirits and Arcade Spirits: The New Challengers, romantic comedy visual novels set in 20XX, and have more games on the way!

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Everything is connected.

What level are you at?

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Save 50% on Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain on Steam

A comic book adventure of freelance supervillainy, petting cats, and/or destroying capitalism in which your choices determine success in a s

Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain is now on sale for only six bucks in the Steam Visual Novel Fest!

Pet cats! Romance evildoers! Destroy capitalism! Do at least two of those three things, without breaking the bank! Tell a friend, tell an enemy!

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Get more from Fiction Factory Games on Patreon

creating visual novels and indie games

One year ago to this day, the first playable build of The Shadow Over Cyberspace went live to our $5+ Patreon backers.

Today, we start a new project: Laugh Track. And there's a playable first-episode test on Patreon, if you want a very early look. Enjoy Must See TV.

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The Shadow Over Cyberspace getting some traction, Penny Larceny being noticed a bit more, Arcade Spirits nabbing up the Valentine's Day curious...

And we've got more coming. Work's already underway on our next game, where tragedy equals comedy. Must see TV arrives in 2026 (likely).

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We're pleased to be participating in The Storytellers Festival 2025, with our modempunk horror game: The Shadow Over Cyberspace!

Bargain with eldritch horrors, hack websites, and resist the Strange Aeon of Y2K. Available for FREE on PC.

Also, please consider wishlisting or buying our other games: Arcade Spirits and Penny Larceny! Video game romance, esports competition, or doing ridiculous crimes while fighting capitalism. Fiction Factory Games has something for everyone!

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Looking for love this Valentine's Day? In Penny Larceny: Gig Economy Supervillain, you can:

😘 Date Criminals! (Scandalous!) 🏳️‍🌈 Use Pronouns! (Egads!) 💸 Fight Capitalism! (Gadzooks!) 🐈 Pet Cats! (Uwu!)

Available on Win, Mac, and Linux: https://www.fictionfactorygames.com/pennylarceny/

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New Era, Same Mission

Fiction Factory Games is transitioning into a new era. --whoa, calm down, Good Era! Good. We'd have used scary black text on yellow if Bad Era.

Stefan Gagne (that's me, the one wearing most of the hats) has retired from his dayjob, to focus on disability self care -- but also game development.

The plan doesn't change. We'll continue doing free game releases for as long as we can.

And it's not about profit. It was never about profit. It's about the words on your screen, to speak and be heard. That doesn't change, either. We're in this for the love of the games alone.

If you want to help with our free game releases (got a new one in the works now) we have a Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/fictionfactorygames

But only if you have the financial means. It's a tough world right now; your solvency comes first. We're plenty solvent and this simply helps boost our efforts.

Can't chip any cash? That's fine! Help spread the word of Arcade Spirits, Penny Larceny, and Shadow Over Cyberspace. Maybe join the Discord community: https://discord.gg/gaCcH2N

We've got good things on the horizon. And our inclusive, queer-friendly stories will continue no matter the Strange Aeon.

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Currently binge watching various youth oriented exercises in comedic media presentation! Also known as sitcoms. For... reasons. Important game developer reasons.

So what shows do you remember from when you were young? Assuming television was still relevant at the time.

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Version 1.3 of The Shadow Over Cyberspace released. Adds some improvements for text-to-speech users, squashes some bugs, generally tidies things up a little.

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We're still here and will continue to make games that cry out for human dignity until someone stops us.

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Livecraft, Laughcraft, Lovecraft.

...although I'm pretty sure The Shadow Over Cyberspace's comedy, queerness, and progressive dogma would cause him to achieve 2,000 RPM in his grave. Could we hook up his corpse to a generator and power the eastern seaboard?

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Our recent free release, The Shadow Over Cyberspace, follows a long line of story-driven games:

Arcade Spirits, video love and friendship

Arcade Spirits The New Challengers, esports glory and camaraderie

Penny Larceny, superhero social satire

We're Fiction Factory Games. Welcome aboard.

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We're deleting our Instagram, in protest of Meta's anti-queer policies and misinformation spreading.

...yes, we had an Instagram. And we barely used it. We're a game company, not an influencer, and we don't care to fight that desperate rat race for attention. So this was just a final "Nah."

We worked with marketing teams before who, for $12,000 dollars, did next to nothing for us aside from say "You should use Tiktok and Instagram!" to which we now say "You should eat the entirety of our collective ass."

(But we are a safe apolitical game dev and not a brand risk, yes?)

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Version 1.2 released. This fixes some typos, Azathoth's border effects, and importantly fixes a few hacking minigames that weren't working for visually impaired users in clipboard mode.

Should be the last patch for a bit, unless someone spots a showstopper bug. Enjoy!

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Version 1.1 of The Shadow Over Cyberspace released on Steam and Itch. This fixes some cases of your name being "None," fixes clipboard based self-voicing, and makes a few small text changes to fix plot sequencing problems. Still investigating possible Steam Deck issues.

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The Shadow Over Cyberspace by Fiction Factory Games

A modempunk horror story from the creators of Arcade Spirits.

Dread whispers echo across the Information Superhighway. Y2K is coming, giving way to the Old Ones. Embrace the Strange Aeon or go offline permanently…

The Shadow Over Cyberspace, a modempunk horror story. Available today for FREE on PC.

The Shadow Over Cyberspace is free -- no MTX, no battle pass, no "prologue," just free -- for Win, Mac, and Linux. Pay-what-you-want and optional donation DLC if you like.

Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2982530/The_Shadow_Over_Cyberspace/

Itchio: https://fictionfactorygames.itch.io/the-shadow-over-cyberspace

This experimentally weird narrative game is only possible thanks to our community, who have supported our development. If you want to get in on our next project, here's where to go:

Discord: https://discord.gg/gaCcH2N Patreon: https://patreon.com/fictionfactorygames

Thanks, and enjoy!

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Shall we play a game?

The Shadow Over Cyberspace launches at 1pm eastern, Jan 10. You've got less than a day before the Strange Aeon begins.