August 4, 2016 - Kickstarter Launched!
August 4, 2016 - Demo is Released!
July 22, 2016 - Closed Beta Begins!
The Secret Cards team aims to create cerebral experiences that will make the audience think. The studios is composed of three artistic game enthusiasts who have been both players and developers.
Taking inspiration from the team’s experiences with anxiety and depression, Secret Cards is proud to present their first commercial project, Sick Dreams. Sick Dreams follows the story of a young individual as they describe their dreams and reflect on their waking life. In their dreams, they struggle with the difficulties they face in life, not yet knowing that they have an undiagnosed condition. The gameplay is a Shoot 'Em Up styled Bullet Hell with Visual Novel Aspects to tell the narrative. The player must guide the protagonist through their dreams, allowing the protagonist to come to terms with reality.
Features:
- Shoot-em-Up and Bullethell gameplay
- Visual Novel Narrative
- 3 Endings: the good, the bad, the ugly
- Ambient, atmospheric electronic music
- Abstract, stream of consciousness art
- Story recap in case players miss anything during the action
- Endurance and time attack bonus levels that are unlocked by beating main story levels
- Where else can you play as a screaming, disembodied jackal head that breathes fire?
CONTENT WARNING
We at Secret Cards want our players to have a pleasant experience with our games. Therefore we feel it is in the best interest of both us and our players to post a content warning for our game.
Sick Dreams features the following themes and content, which some viewers may find disturbing:
- Abandonment
- Abusive Relationships
- Alchohol
- Anxiety
- Blood
- Body Horror
- Drugs
- Claustrophobia
- Death
- Depression
- Disembodied Parts
- Flashing Lights
- Gaslighting
- Strong Language
- Suicide
You can download the demo on our Itch.io page.
Or you can download the demo on our indieDB page.
We at Secret Cards are proud to formally announce our project Sick Dreams and launch our Kickstarter campaign. Secret Cards is a newly formed game development team based in California. Our team is made up of three permanent members and one freelancer.
Programming/Writing: Eight8Diamonds
Our team is lead by Eight8Diamonds Having worked with Gamemaker for over ten years and being completely dedicated to making games, Eight8Diamonds is our project lead, programmer, and head of development. Sick Dreams is Eight8Diamond's first commercial game project.
Art: LovesickJackal
Lovesick Jackal is our lead artist, character designer, and director of aesthetics. Sick Dreams is LovesickJackal's first commercial game project.
GUI: MysteryCorgi
MysteryCorgi is our head of marketing, assistant GUI artist, and financial adviser. MysteryCorgi is passionate about visual novels and while working as a freelancer has helped produce over ten visual novel projects since 2011. Such projects include That Cheap and Sacred Thing, Culina, A More Beautiful World, and Purrfectly Ever After. MysteryCorgi also works with Afterthought Studios.
Music: Khoven
Khoven is a freelance music composer who was hired on to the project. Khoven specializes in ambient, atmospheric electronic music. Sick Dreams is Khoven's first commercial game project.
We are 49.6% done with our assets and programming, so we are confident we can finish production by our deadline.
We are turning to Kickstarter because we require the extra funding to bring our game to its maximum potential and to complete the remainder of the game.
This campaign is really important to the team, who absorbed the majority of the cost of production. As a fledgling developer we need all the help we can get. Each of the team members is hard at work to finish this game, and we need to support them.
Supporters will be helping found the dreams of four young people who otherwise would not be able to support themselves in this market.