Coming soon

About This Game

It's 1989. Your modem is a way into the underground.

GLYPHIS_IO BBS: The Proxy Tapes 1989 is a narrative hacking adventure played through your Bradsonic 69000. Dial into hidden bulletin board systems, solve programming puzzles, crack protected software and explore an alternate Japan through the people connecting beneath its surface.

An invitation brings you into a network of hackers, software crackers, pirate broadcasters and musicians. Small jobs earn you access. Conversations give you leads. As your handle becomes familiar, the people on the other side of the screen begin to trust you.

Dial into the underground.

Follow conversations across obscure bulletin boards. Recover files, impersonate contacts and piece together the information you need to enter systems you were never supposed to see. An unfamiliar filename, a passing remark or an unexpected message can give you a reason to investigate somewhere new.

Crack the protection. Play the game.

Work your way into software-trading circles, obtain underground releases and break their copy protection. Then load up the games you've cracked and play them on your Bradsonic. Compete on global leaderboards in supported games.

Make the machine work for you.

Get your system connected, bring its audio to life and learn to program your Bradsonic in a single-register assembly language inspired by the 6502.

Use BradBasix, its own version of BASIC, to build tools that brute-force passwords and stop timers on secured servers. Consult the documentation, follow guidance from your BBS contacts and put your code to work opening up the underground.

Each problem you solve gives you a practical reason to understand a little more of this strange computer.

You could even build your own games?!

Get to know the people behind the handles

Meet Glyphis, Rain, Jaxkando and Uncle-am through their messages, requests and conversations. The person sending your next assignment might also share your next favourite song. Spend time with the crew, earn their confidence and discover what each of them is trying to protect.

A secret gig, a missing contact or an email arriving at the wrong moment can make the next job feel very different.

Tune into forbidden frequencies.

Explore pirate radio stations, underground music and broadcasts from a Japan shaped by surveillance and resistance. Listen to the voices keeping its culture alive, follow the clues they leave behind, or keep a station playing while you work. The music and conversations give you a way to know the world beyond your screen.

Follow the clues. Choose who to trust.

Investigate intercepted messages, personal correspondence and disturbing discoveries tucked away for curious players. As the story unfolds, decisions about trust and loyalty lead towards different endings. The systems you learn open doors into a rebellion whose risks become personal as you get closer to its people.

AI artwork sucks for many reasons, which is why I am doing things differently.

In the below animation, within the 12 seconds that Steam is allowing me to have as an animated Gif (sorry for the crazy sped up example), I am demonstrating my hybrid approach to filtering photos, and other references using Photoshop.

As an artist I have always taken references and manipulated from there. From taking photos of power-stations for cyberpunk city scapes and manipulating them in retro hardware like the Commodore Amiga A1200. To extracting images from advertising and propaganda billboards from North Korea and applying cartoon filters to create the end results. AI, is obviosuly, here to stay but most of my assets have all come from own original workflow, which does include occasional use of Midjourney, Codex or Nano Banana if I am unable to find exactly what I need from stock, or the real world. I know AI is dividing many people but I feel that provided a human is the one calling the shots and continuing to work in the way they have done so for many years prior to create their artwork then there really isn't any issue.

You came for the cracks, the cassettes and the forbidden frequencies but you stayed for the people who have now started to feel like home.

AI Generated Content Disclosure

The developers describe how their game uses AI Generated Content like this:

AI art sucks. AI dialouge sucks. AI coding is pretty good.

I have been an artist for many years long before AI arrived and I enjoy doing my own artwork and writing my own dialouge. For art I use referencing from photos, stocks and my own workflows. I use Photoshop to manipulate and retro tools to do the pixel based stuff. Occasionally, I will use AI if I feel that it would benefit my projects, and I have here to do the placeholders, which I am replacing as the development continues.

I have used Codex to create custom based engines which I am then using to create everything by eye, and by hand. You can see this entire process over on my YouTube Channel (youtube.com/@civitasuniverse) - where I build the BBSes, the mini-games, the tunes, and write all of the dialogue.

I am loving the music creation side, as a musician, I am writing original arps, basslines and melodies using the VST Tyrell N6 in FLStudio and adding voices with ElevenLabs for voice changing, and Suno and NotebookLM for the pirate radio-show material.

Please understand that I am using AI, but not how you might think. For complete transparency, do watch my devlogs on YouTube and follow me on social media (see links on this page) for daily updates, as I build the game. My goal here is for you to understand my working practices and the ridiculous effort I am putting into GLYPHIS_IO, along with hopefully inspiring you to maybe start, or finish, something yourself. Cheers!

Mature Content Description

The developers describe the content like this:

Depicts hacking of corporations and education facilities in a purely fictional setting.