Void Dreaming

Void Dreaming is a story-driven casual game where players are unexpectedly stranded on a space station at the edge of interstellar space. To return to civilization, players must explore the edge of the galaxy with an exploration ship. Will you be able to return to civilization? In the game, players can customize their Minecraft origins and traits to begin their training on the ship. Interact with a diverse crew and improve your skills through various courses. As the story unfolds, players will gradually uncover the secrets hidden by their crew members, discerning their true intentions from false ones, building deeper bonds with kind-hearted crew members, and shaping your and their destinies while unlocking various exciting scenarios. The game also offers interstellar exploration gameplay, allowing players to explore the unknown with their crew, map galaxies, and unravel their mysteries. Enjoy this wondrous interstellar adventure!

Features of Void Dreaming:

Define your Rael: Play the prologue and select the Origins that defined how Rael developed and grew… and stumbled. Choose one of twenty-seven unique Origin combinations, or skip the prologue entirely with one of three presets.

Build your Skills: Take the time aboard the Dreamer to hone one of six Skills informed by your Origins to better face the challenges of fringe space.

Develop your Relationships: Interact with the crew on- and off-shift and earn their trust,  learn more about them, and maybe* see what lurks under their uniforms.

Explore the Dreamer: The Void Dreamer is your new home. Explore her freely when you’re not on shift, from the rec room to the observation deck to the commissary, and beyond.

One Route; Many Paths: Void Dreaming has a single overarching narrative, but how Rael moves through it is up to you. Time is limited each day; does Rael build relationships? With who? Does he develop his Skills? Which are most important? Even the smallest choice can have a lasting impact.

Fly the Fringe: Explore the unexplored with the crew, mapping out new star systems, uncovering strange mysteries, and fending off cosmic dangers, killer star pirates, and worst of all… boredom.

Changelog:

Hey, everyone, Fae here! It’s update day for everyone, and I hope you’ve all been waiting with excitement for what’s to come here. We’ve got some good stuff coming around today, so let’s get into it!

V0.05.00 Update Notes

We left off in a fun place; let’s find out what happens next!

Day 5:  Welcome to Day 5 - Mendacity! Follow on as the Dreamer crew confront Lyda and Anwill. Deal with the consequences of your actions and see how things play out at long last. No hints as to what to expect here, sorry; you’ll have to read on to see what Day 5 has in store for you. I promise it’s a good one!

Credits Update: As usual, the credits have been updated to reflect the state of things the night before this update came out. Thanks again so much to all the supporters of Void Dreaming; your contributions make this project possible!

Bugfixes and Typo Corrections: A couple of lingering issues from older builds have been  corrected, including the ability to repeat Tulemeni’s rec room scene on Day 2 in certain circumstances. You only need to go through that the one time, thank you very much!

State of Affairs

February was far, far busier than I expected it would be, and I suspect the months to come will only be more of the same. There’s been a lot of crap I’ve had to deal with this month that’s stymied my workflow, but I’ve made sure to push myself to find the time where I can to keep working on Void Dreaming. I even made some great progress, even if it wasn’t as much as I wanted to make. Story of my life, eh?

So let’s look at how things have changed this month for the project!

Since the initial release, Void Dreaming’s various versions have been downloaded from Itch.io over 18.1k times now. I expect that’s going to go up quite a fair bit given the Day 5 update going out today; resolution is always a fun thing to finally get!

The project’s 5-star rating on Itch holds strong! We’re still technically at 4.9 (4.91, thanks to new readers with mixed feelings!) the 343 total reviews include 323 5-star ratings. The reviews you leave, whether it’s just a rating or an actual written review, are always a delight to see. Thanks for taking the time to show your love (or other feelings) for the project!

On the Patreon, your support hasn’t let up and we hit a new milestone! We’re up to over 300 paid subs for the first time now; it’s currently sitting at 301 total with 37 of them subscribed at the higher Officer tier. I’ll never be done saying thank you to everyone who helps to support Void Dreaming; every cent I receive is going into the project!

Over on the Discord (while we still have one; I’m concerned as hell about the new measures they’re taking and with whom they’re taking them), we’re also now up to a blistering 699 (so close!) members there. Don’t be shy about joining up; I have voice channels there I jump into sometimes, we run fun polls, and there’s lots of other fans to interact and chat it up with!

And last but not least, we have the Void Dreaming Bluesky page. We’re now up to 1103 followers, which is nuts! While I’ve been lax about adding new teaser images about upcoming content to the Bluesky page, it’s still a great place to see fanart, get updates about what’s coming for Void Dreaming, and also learn about some of my wonderful peers in the space and what they’re up to, too!

Writing and Programming

I actually thought I’d be done with Day 8 this month! Seriously! And while I’m not yet finished with it, I’m considerably closer. Closer, to the point that I feel confident resuming my percentages, and saying that Day 8 is now 90% complete. I’m hoping it will be finished in the coming couple of weeks, end of month at the latest. Then, Day 9 should topple in good time; I estimate about a month and a half of work needed for it, then Day 10 and Day 11. If that schedule holds, then Day 12 might finish before the end of December, and the little asterisk in the release plan status can finally be abolished. I’m confident!

The testing team has expanded a little further, and hopefully with the extra addition we’ll get a bit more sorted out in advance! Days 7 and 8 will need extensive testing before they go live to ensure that they’re all good, but I’m confident that everything will be looking good and working fine by the time those Days are in Patreon (and especially in public) paws. There’s been a lot of issues discovered, so I’m confident of an effectively clean release for the first time in… well, ever!

Art Assets

Rico’s on a well-deserved break now for a little bit, but he’ll be back to work with me soon enough, don’t you worry!

Vallhound is churning away though, for the Void Dreaming treadmill for 2026 has begun in earnest! CGs are sorted, sprites are on the way, more CGs are in the queue, and then more sprites still. He’s going to be a very busy boy!

Project Finances

Continuing on after a brilliant January (and thank you again so much to everyone who rallied in the wake of everything going on then), February has set new records despite the length of the month. We overcame the 300 paid sub marker for the first time, which has us at  about AUD$2.18k per month. As mentioned last update, this rate of growth not only ensures that the rest of the year is looking well within budgetary constraints, but some of those other things I’d like to do to enhance the project are also starting to look more and more feasible. I’m risk-averse by nature though so I won’t be committing to them just yet, but if this rate of Patreon income growth continues, there could be some very exciting extra things added to the project during 2026. And even if the growth flattens out, I’m comfortable with where we’re at to say that flattening growth will still ensure that Void Dreaming is able to do everything it needs to do. Thank you so much to all of Void Dreaming’s Patreon supporters; every little bit helps, however much and however long you support the project. I’m working hard to be worthy of your contributions, and I hope to continue to earn it for a long time yet to come!

March’s Goals

Actually conclude Day 8 writing and core programming, progress Day 9.

Complete writing and editing for April short story update.

Investigate potential cool additions to Void Dreaming as time and finances permit.

Upcoming Main Updates:

Apr 4th:  Short Story Kindling (Patreon Release)

May 2nd: Day 7 - Covenant Part 1 (Patreon Release)

Jun 6th: Day 6 - Inflection (Public Release), Day 7 Part 2 (Patreon Release)

Release Plan Status: On Target*

Well, the asterisk is sticking around. And because I’ve been working so hard to try and eliminate it, I’ve not been able to spend my time working on side-stuff that could result in cool things for Void Dreaming. My priority remains ensuring that the visual novel’s writing and programming returns to my preferred state (specifically, that writing and programming is complete for twelve months beyond the current Patreon release) at the earliest possible time, but it really would have been nice to have something ready to go for the one year anniversary of Void Dreaming. Having just the short story for Patrons feels like a letdown to me, but… unfortunately, that’s the nature of my workload. No rest for the wicked, I suppose.

That said, I’m feeling good. The Patreon support continuing to steadily rise is incredibly heartening, as is the buzz I hear almost daily in the Discord. I’m looking forward to seeing what theories and speculation comes out of this next update, because I’d like to think there’s a lot to enjoy with what we’ve got coming out on both sites today! And my writing is proceeding apace; I’m not where I want to be right now (see also: the title of my autobiography), but I see the path to getting back there. My hard work is putting me on that path, and my hard work will keep me on it until it’s all sorted.

So thank you again, dear readers, for your continued support and enthusiasm for Void Dreaming! You’re giving me the boost I need in my weaker moments to keep throwing everything into this project, and I literally couldn’t do it without you.

Player Comments of Void Dreaming:

Overall, the impressions are very positive. However, some of their actions lead to strange and not always logical consequences, which slightly affects the overall experience. The lack of a gallery is also noticeable.

This FVN absolutely slaps.Characters great, story interesting, loads of meaningful choices, writing quality is really strong, and everyone is hot.For something seemingly this early in development, there's a really generous amount of content and character choices that do really impact the narrative, as well as how other characters perceive and act towards the mc.The plot is really engaging, and the characters, as well as, the mc aren't annoying or overly whiny like so many VN's where the writer has just yeeted in their self-insert OC. This is genuinely really really good so far.Cannot wait for more updates!

Void Dreaming is one of the most extraordinary stories I've run across. I've never seen a VN that gives such complete control to the player to make discoveries about its characters, settings, and its interesting, ongoing story that you are trying to resolve along with the rest of the cast. Along the way, there's plenty of opportunity to talk and fraternize with the cast. Not everyone may be to your liking or taste, but no interactions are forced on anyone: the player has true freedom of choice. This novel has flown under the radar for most people, but after stumbling on it on itch and deciding to give it a try on a lark, what I found is something that I believe is well worth your time on the strength of the story telling alone — even if for some reason, the sex scenes never manage to interest you.