GYGO Cosy: Support Palestinian Game Devs

Hi friends, it’s Zainabb and I can’t believe it’s nearly the end of the year. For many of us, this year has been a difficult one, but I hope you’re able to spend this December playing your favourite games and reflecting on your achievements this year, even if that’s been mostly getting through each day (this is a reminder for myself, too!). While I’m writing this, the Steam Autumn Sale is on, and I’ve picked up Gourdlets and Strange Horticulture to play over the holidays. I’m excited to get cosy with colourful blobs and weird plants—let us know your holiday gaming plans in the comments!

Here’s your reminder to take action for a free Palestine. Resources include The Palestine Academy, the Palestinian Feminist Collective’s amazing action toolkit and my own newsletter, Crips for Palestine. If you’re able, please donate to The Sameer Project or Crips for eSims for Gaza.

Palestinian Developer Hopes to Crowdfund Game About the Nakba

Palestinian game developer Rasheed Abueideh is crowdfunding for Dreams on a Pillow, a game about the Nakba that Abueideh has been trying to fund for a decade. Dreams on a Pillow is a stealth adventure game set during the 1948 Nakba, when over 800,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed by Zionist settlers. (While this isn’t strictly a cosy game, the game’s art style is absolutely gorgeous despite its harrowing subject matter and, frankly, what’s cosier than supporting indie devs to produce their art and put food on the table?)

The game is inspired by the Palestinian folktale of Omm, a young mother forced to flee her home after her husband is murdered by settlers. Omm tries to rescue her newborn from her home, only to realise later that she has been carrying a pillow instead of her baby. The player will take control of Omm as she proceeds on her perilous journey towards refuge in Lebanon, using stealth to evade Zionist soldiers and settler gangs. The player will need to balance protecting Omm’s body and her mind—dropping her Pillow allows Omm to interact with the environment but it also triggers nightmares and trauma responses.

Alongside this haunting gameplay, Dreams on a Pillow will tell Palestinian stories of the Nakba that western audiences are frequently unfamiliar with. The game will take Omm—and players—through massacres, concentration camps, attacks on refugees, and other atrocities committed by Zionist settlers during this time, many of which have been repeated time and again in Palestine since 1948.

As a Palestinian, Abueideh has faced rejection from traditional publishers and funders, which deem his games—which include the acclaimed Liyla & The Shadows of War—”too political” or “too risky.” Abueideh is now crowdfunding on a platform centred around Muslims, since most mainstream crowdfunding platforms don’t recognise Palestine. The campaign aims to raise $194,800 USD in order to support game development and staff costs, as well as Abueideh and his family due to increased Israeli attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank over the last year, which has prevented Abueideh from travelling to his small business in Nablus. The campaign runs through January 13, 2025 and, at the time of publishing, has raised over $80,000 USD.

I want to pull a line out of the “project timeline” section of the campaign page, where most game crowdfunders would explain how long the project is likely to take to complete. Here, Abueideh’s team adds: “a clear plan for the completion of the game has been put in place to ensure continuity in the case of Rasheed’s disappearance, injury, or demise at the hand of the continuously expanding Israeli aggression in the West Bank.” Please support this campaign if you’re able, and share widely—our solidarity with Palestinian indie developers is vital, now and always.

In other news…

Upcoming life sim InZOI has been delayed, perhaps unsurprisingly, given its scope. The game will now launch in early access on March 28, 2025, to properly allow the studio time to “nurturing [InZOI] from its Early Access birth”.

According to EA, The Sims 4 gained over 15 million new players over the last year, following the game’s move to a free-to-play model in October 2022. The game has recently seen a renewed commitment from EA, which has confirmed that Project Rene—currently in development—will not be The Sims 5 as many fans had speculated. Instead, Project Rene will be a standalone game in the broader The Sims franchise, with The Sims 4 receiving ongoing support and development alongside.

Dont Nod director Michel Koch has defended Life is Strange: Double Exposure devs, after Deck Nine workers received “hateful messages” online regarding their take on the series. Koch wrote on Twitter that “nothing justifies hating on people for how they wrote their game,” and went on to acknowledge that, although he may not “recognize [his] characters” when he plays Double Exposure himself, “that’s also inevitable with different writers.”

Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp is dead. Long live Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp Complete! While the original free-to-play mobile game is no longer active, Complete will be available on iOS and Android for an introductory price of $9.99 USD from its launch on December 2 through January 31, 2025 when the price will increase to $19.99.

In China, Nintendo will be closing its Switch eShop on March 31, 2026, with all network-related services to cease by May 15, 2026. Nintendo has not announced why it’s shutting its digital services in China, though it is offering a choice of free games to Chinese users in the meantime.

In other Nintendo Switch news, RollerCoaster Tycoon Classic is launching on the console on December 5. The bundle features the original RollerCoaster Tycoon and its sequel, with updated controls and UI for modern sensibilities. I never got into these games myself, unfortunately, but I still appreciate from afar the cosiness of building epic rides, designing miniature theme parks, and chucking people out of carts at a great height.

Zainabb Hull

Zainabb Hull is an editor at Sidequest, a writer and organiser, and sort-of artist. They’re also a trans, queer, and disabled brown femme who runs Crips for Palestine, a newsletter sharing digital actions that disabled folks and allies can take in solidarity with Palestinian people.