Dreamsettler, the follow-up to early internet inspired browser game Hypnospace Outlaw, has been cancelled

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Dreamsettler, the follow-up to early internet inspired browser game Hypnospace Outlaw, has been cancelled
"This is not a joke, and I'm sorry everyone"

News by Oisin Kuhnke Contributor
Published on June 21, 2025

A little over three years since it was announced, Dreamsettler, the spiritual sequel to Hypnospace Outlaw, has been cancelled. Yesterday, lead developer Jay Tholen shared a video simply titled "Dreamsettler is canceled", where he explained some of his reasoning behind the decision. "This is not a joke, and I'm sorry everyone," Tholen wrote in the description of the video.

After noting that he "didn't want to make a video like this," the developer went on to explain that Dreamsettler is cancelled, going on to say that this means "it's not coming out, it won't be finished. This was a mutual decision between the publisher and I. They didn't pull support or anything, and they tried what they could to keep it going, but it's just time to stop it."

He also noted how it was bad timing given that a Patreon to help keep the project going was only launched earlier this year. There are also plans to try to release the part of the game that do exist, including the soundtrack from returning composer The Chowder Man, in some shape or form.

In a short version of events, Tholan explained that with Dreamsettler, they had a budget this time, so "we tried to plan the game from the top down more or less, where we knew all the beats that would happen, and what expensive things we could afford to film or have made for the game, and how much money we could afford to pay a programmer for X amount of time." In turn, there was a specific schedule to follow, and Tholen noted he has "never successfully made a game based on a design document."

He later said that he thinks he's a "hard person to work with. On a normal team, where there wasn't some guy who needed to work a weird way, they would have finished this game, and it would have been great, but I just couldn't get it going, you know? And it's too late. Hopefully you all stick around, and don't hate my guts, and hopefully we'll talk soon."

In the years since announcing Dreamsettlers, Tholen did also work on Slayer X: Terminal Aftermath: Vengeance of the Slayer, a boomer shooter spin-off made by the in-world Hypnospace Outlaw character Zane - former RPS staffer Liam reviewed it and had some positive but mixed feelings on it. Co-founder John Walker reviewed Hypnospace Outlaw back in the day too, coming away from it quite enamoured.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole 2]

In one of the first patreon streams, he mentioned that he didn't even like 2000's web design or aesthetics.

If you want people that endlessly jerks off to those aesthetics you're going to end up with a bunch of trannies who wasn't even born in the 90's. Not adoring that style means he can have fun with it in a different way.

 

[PhoBingas]

I think its less intentional scamming and more of incompetence.

Who's to say? It might have been a grift, or it might just be one of those failed business ventures. Way more companies go tits up in the first year or two. Owning a business is hard, especially in states or countries where they tax the fuck out of you.

 

[Coolio55]

If you want people that endlessly jerks off to those aesthetics you're going to end up with a bunch of trannies who wasn't even born in the 90's. Not adoring that style means he can have fun with it in a different way.

A: That was already who he was hiring
B: It was less that he didn't adore it and more that he actively disliked it and said he was stuggling to come up with ideas on what to do

Who's to say? It might have been a grift, or it might just be one of those failed business ventures. Way more companies go tits up in the first year or two. Owning a business is hard, especially in states or countries where they tax the fuck out of you.

Nah, Jay's legit. Legit bad at running a project.
The end result's usually good though.
German tax laws (he moved to Germany because of Pmurt) may have played a hand but I'm pretty sure that the friend who runs the publisher is US based. Not sure how that all affects things.

 

[gata]

man that sucks, Christmas pain indeed. What made the first game great was how free you are to explore the hypnospace internet without the game hand holding you throughout it and how great the story was executed throughout the websites.

I'm gonna cope how this is for the best for we don't have to see more trannies and zoomies appropriating the early 2000s aesthetics and putting their gay shit all over it. I've also heard that there was a page made for a donator in dreamsettler that was transbian wedding or something

 

[TheCrackMonkey]

Pretty much. He basically got lucky with Hypnospace. The publisher kept him on a very tight budget and he worked within it and made a game that sold waaaay better than expected.

From what I was reading on a few sites, this time they gave him a bigger budget... but he was chewing through it at an insane speed and not meeting any deadlines or progress checkpoints. He'd been given a few warnings about this, which he ignored.

He was spending hardly any time working on the ACTUAL GAME part of it. He was spending all the time and money on stuff like the Website Builder, a bunch of minigame-esque things, and commissioning a ton of stuff for in-game media.

To quote Tholen himself:

What I don't get is why didn't he simply finish and release the main game and then add all of the extra stuff as updates in the future? I thought that was one of the biggest benefits of digital distribution.

 

[Echo_Doge]

Here's an interesting thing that I noticed which in hindsight was a much bigger red flag than I assumed at the time.
In one of the first patreon streams, he mentioned that he didn't even like 2000's web design or aesthetics.
Kind-of a big deal when you're making a game set in the 2000's but I assumed that - since all the currently released content looked good - the artists he'd assigned to the project could continue to work their magic and smooth things over.

The biggest red flag was him running a Patreon for an already-fully-funded game with an already-attached publisher.

If that doesn't scream "We've pissed away our budget and are desperate", I don't know what does.

What I don't get is why didn't he simply finish and release the main game and then add all of the extra stuff as updates in the future? I thought that was one of the biggest benefits of digital distribution.

Because he has fun making the setting, media, and other stuff, but not making the actual game. It's very common with artistic types.

It's why so many writers never finish shit: they love making their setting and doing world building, but are shit at actually telling a story and weaving a good narrative.