Where Birds Sleep Release Date

07 Jun 2026Developer post

BIG NEWS! New Trailer & Neil Newbon as Cormo

We’ve been sitting on this info for a long time, but the day has come! No one's more excited to finally share this with you all, so here we go! Neil Newbon as Cormo We are proud to announce a collaboration with the award-winning British actor Neil Newbon who is joining our amazin

15 Nov 2025Developer post

Where Birds Go to Sleep at Czech & Slovak Games Week!

We're happy to say that we are participating in the Czech & Slovak Games Week taking place between November 17-24th. During this, we will be streaming the amazing Dustflower 's pre-recorded playthrough of our old demo. The event page is at Enjoy the sale, and keep an eye out

25 Jun 2025Developer post

Steampost of Greater Updates

Progress has been great on our feature complete demo and it was high time we updated our store page description to reflect the changes we've made. We hope you'll find this exciting! Where Birds Go To Sleep is a narrative adventure mystery game like no other - a blend of Tabletop

Progress has been great on our feature complete demo and it was high time we updated our store page description to reflect the changes we've made. We hope you'll find this exciting!

Where Birds Go To Sleep is a narrative adventure mystery game like no other - a blend of Tabletop Role-Playing Games, Point & Click Adventures and mystery games with narrative choices and world exploration.

Slip into the mind of Cormo, a villainous pirate-turned-explorer driven by greed as he embarks on a secret mission within the prison island. The journey goes awry - Cormo is shipwrecked, and toxic, mind-numbing fog shrouds the island. The prison colony is strangely quiet…

As the tower built to reach the heavens and meet God nears completion - an island appears in the distant sea. Prisoners are sent to establish a colony and chart it.

The whole island presents a multi-layered, interlocking mystery. Delve into the depths of the prison colony, a shifting island covered in a strange, mind-altering fog. Solve diegetic puzzles, and uncover secrets hidden around every corner. It’s up to you to find them.

Collect clues and use items - Secrets hide in plain sight, and you will have to use tools both mundane and cosmic to uncover them: such as a shovel or a rope, but also time, gravity, perspective, spoken clues and your own sanity.

See the world through the eyes of a mentally and morally unstable person. Delve into difficult topics and taboos.

On your journey you will meet a handful of developed, complex characters. Become their friend, learn their desires, and then… lie, manipulate, cheat, commit depraved acts; become what you hate; or fight against your nature.

It’s all about awareness and knowledge. Stats and attributes may ease your journey, but they won’t solve the cosmic mysteries for you. Uncover secrets and hidden messages around every corner. Fully missable. It’s up to you to find them.

Around us are things we don’t understand. Invisible demons, devils, coincidences, dreams and dangers unexplored.

Choices affect things big and small - a different description, a different option, a different inner world - a different Cormo, wrestling for control against you. Manipulate him into doing your bidding, break him and override his will, or cooperate and work as a team.

The experimental Heart System will re-contextualise your experience and challenge you to see things in new and exciting ways in and outside of the game as well.

There is no golden path or fail states; every “no” or failure - and sometimes, even death - lead to new opportunities and paths to discover. What has happened cannot be undone.

Immerse yourself in a richly detailed, fictional world inspired by the mythical Middle East, but set at the turn of the 16th century, where exotic fantasy and harsh reality meet.

Brought to life with stunning hand painted art, stellar voice acting and atmospheric and haunting soundtrack composed and recorded in-house.

A story spanning the entire spectrum of human emotion; trivial, humorous, disgusting, grotesque, and tragic. All at once.

The time for our new demo releasing is drawing ever closer. We've run a few rounds of testing on our Discord server that yielded invaluable feedback, helping us shape the game and make it better. We'd like to continue this trend, so if that's something you're interested in, join our server: https://discord.gg/YSFbT3HzrH

Join our Discord!

Original post

09 Apr 2025Developer post

Steampost of Lesser Updates 2

We’ve been hard at work on the game and our new feature complete demo. It’s all coming together steadily, and we thought it’s time to share some more with you: It's not gambling - you're not playing for money. Just for your life. Cormo has long left behind his ruinous habit of ga

We’ve been hard at work on the game and our new feature complete demo. It’s all coming together steadily, and we thought it’s time to share some more with you:

It's not gambling - you're not playing for money. Just for your life.

Cormo has long left behind his ruinous habit of gambling. But it's hard to lose old habits. They don't want to lose you either.

On your explorations you’ll come across dice. Cormo fidgets with them, reminiscing for a moment before tossing them. He’ll never know what he rolled… but you will.

Scenarios are high risk actions that can be attempted using rolled dice - or just leaving it up to luck or fate.

This might be performing an acrobatic feat, trying not to throw up, or deciding whether Cormo’s will or yours will prevail. But the most important of them all is of course - FISHING.

Cormo can find fishing spots - but he never seems to catch any fish. In our game, you will fish out everything BUT fish - from utensils to old memorabilia. But don’t be sad, these items can be repurposed as gifts you can give to other characters, but more on that in a later update.

Constellations of the Mind

Where Birds Go to Sleep features “knowledge puzzles” akin to those in Outer Wilds; puzzles you might not even realise are there at first, and once you know the solution to them, you can solve them within minutes.

As you explore, you will come across clues to puzzles that will be collected into your Mindmap in the form of clue cards. The Mindmap screen is like a quest log, and it is an essential part of the experience.

A Tapestry Within

Almost every dialogue choice in the game subtly changes Cormo’s personality. The personality stats you get from choices were previously not shown anywhere at all, causing a lot of confusion as to what choices really did. Later, we created a section for them in the Inventory but it felt a bit too cramped. Now, stats have their own screen with flashy artwork and animations.

The stats affect things big and small - a different description, a different option, a different inner world - a different Cormo, wrestling for control against you based on these stats.

Chart the Unknown

In a few of our previous news posts, you could get a glimpse of our exploration mechanics and the map. In our next update, we’ll show more.

Help us make the game better!

The time for our new demo releasing is drawing ever closer. We've run a few rounds of testing on our Discord server that yielded invaluable feedback, helping us shape the game and make it better. We'd like to continue this trend, so if that's something you're interested in, join our server for when the new testing call opens: https://discord.gg/YSFbT3HzrH

Original post

11 Nov 2024Developer post

Where Birds Go to Sleep at Czech & Slovak Games Week!

Starting today, the Czech & Slovak Games Week begins until the 18th, and the (old) demo of Where Birds Go to Sleep will be available again during it. As always, during the abovementioned time window we will be streaming the amazing Dustflower 's pre-recorded playthrough of th

20 Oct 2024Developer post

Steampost of Lesser Updates

Sorry for the long radio silence. We have been working hard on the game and made some really great progress. We're still working on our feature complete demo and have been prototyping different maps. Here are a couple of things we've already implemented: Inventory and Stats If yo

Sorry for the long radio silence. We have been working hard on the game and made some really great progress. We're still working on our feature complete demo and have been prototyping different maps.

Here are a couple of things we've already implemented:

Inventory and Stats

If you have played our public demo, you'll remember the “Mindmap” screen, which was accessed by pressing “M” contained ideas about everything - the quests, the items you carry and lore.

The Mindmap has been separated into more traditional categories. The first is the inventory which allows you to browse, inspect, equip and use your collected items. Your accrued character traits were hidden in the previous demo, but now the system is transparent and you will be able keep track of them.

There’s also Thoughts, Clues and Nighthawks, we’ll keep those for another update.

Further UI Redesigns and Polish

We have been hard at work on a big UI overhaul, polish and quality of life improvements. We want to save some of the bigger ones for the next update.

New items get marked in the inventory by a dot on the tab it's in, and get a sheen to signal they're new.

Narrative Log & Dialogue Skipping

Due to popular demand, we have implemented a narrative log. You'll be able to summon it during dialogues to see what has been said, and the options you have chosen.

Another very sought after feature - “dialogue skipping” has been in the plans forever but originally we only wanted to enable it if you were replaying the game - this is not the case anymore, it'll be available from the get-go.

When you press "cancel" (ie "B" on an xbox controller), a text popup will appear on the bottom of your screen telling you to press it again to skip, to prevent you from accidentally skipping.

Day/Night Cycle
We have not mentioned this in the past, but the game features a day/night cycle! Actually, it’s more of a morning/dusk/midnight cycle. The three different daytime states make different areas accessible, they are used in various puzzles and give the world a different look.

Feedback is super important to us, and we're looking forward to releasing our feature complete demo into the wild to see what you all have to say about it!

And last but not least… FISHING. Yes, you can fish in the game. Look out for the next update to keep up with Cormo’s angling escapades.

Original post

18 Sep 2024Developer post

Where Birds Go to Sleep at GDoC Expo!

Starting today, the Game Devs of Colour Expo will run til the 24th, and the demo of Where Birds Go to Sleep will be available again during it! We're preparing a bigger update to drop soon with a lot of new exciting progress shots to show, but it's not quite ready just yet. As alw

01 Mar 2024Developer post

Where Birds Go to Sleep in the Women's Day Sale!

We are excited to be part of the Women's Day Sale running from March 1-10! Check out the wide range of discounted and upcoming games as well as demos! During the festival, we will be streaming Dustflower 's pre-recorded playthrough of our (now outdated) demo. We are working hard

01 Feb 2024Developer post

Storyteller's Festival 2024 Stream

We are excited that Where Birds Go to Sleep is going to be part of The Storyteller's Festival again and we'll be broadcasting the amazing Dustflower 's playthrough of our demo today!

25 Apr 2023Developer post

Where Birds Go to Sleep wins IndieCup's MOST PROMISING GAME AWARD!!!

We are super pumped to announce that our game has won IndieCup's MOST PROMISING GAME award!! Thank you to IndieCup for organising the event, and thank you to everyone for the kind words and the support! This is a colossal morale boost for us as we work on our feature complete dem

14 Nov 2022Developer post

Developer Live Stream, come chat with us!

Starting NOW is the beginning of the CZECH & SLOVAK GAMES WEEK, a Steam Festival celebrating games made in Czechia and Slovakia! We'll be live streaming tomorrow 10-11 PM CET on our Steam page!!! We will play the demo and talk about development, and this is the first time you

14 Oct 2022Developer post

Play The Demo!

Starting today, our demo will be public again as part of Dreamhack Beyond's Indie Showcase (14 Oct - 23 Oct, leading into another festival 24-25 October called Dev.Play centered around Eastern European games! There are two other festivals we'll be part of in Novemeber as well, so

In this short video, you can briefly see a glimpse of our exploration prototype, then the inventory, clues and thoughts screens:	Watch on YouTube
Here is a little sneak peek of the Clues screen - this screen is essentially your journal or quest log:	Watch on YouTube
Last, this one shows the new main menu with animations and how the UX is improved in the Settings menu (instead of going out of menus, you can switch between menus) - this might seem like a small thing, and in isolation it is, but it's so close to my heart.	Watch on YouTube

Updates & announcements

Neil Newbon as Cormo

New Trailer

The Game’s Title is Now Where Birds Sleep

The Steam Page Got an Update Too

What’s Next?

It's not gambling - you're not playing for money. Just for your life.

Constellations of the Mind

A Tapestry Within

Chart the Unknown

Help us make the game better!

Inventory and Stats

Further UI Redesigns and Polish

Narrative Log & Dialogue Skipping

Day/Night Cycle

Some Behind the Scenes Videos

When:

What:

there might be some content still that you haven't seen yet:

1. There's a big secret in our demo that we hid too well!

2. And about those achievements...

3. Replayabillity and endings

The outcome of the Dunlin conversation (of which there is 4):

The end screen you get when you enter the forest:

Thank You

The Demo's Availability

We Want Your Thoughts!

Developer Commentary Playlist