Not A Sailor Studios

About Buddy Sim 1984 Press Kit

Thanks to next generation AI technology, Buddy Simulator 1984 simulates the experience of hanging out with a best buddy! Your buddy learns from you, constantly adapting to your interests and personality. But most importantly, your buddy can play games with you!

Buddy Sim 1984 Press Kit

Buddy Simulator 1984 is a unique horror experience that can individually connect with each player on a very personalized level. Instead of designing a horror game reliant on being "scary", we wanted to delve more into the horror of trust, attachment, and instability. When people play this game, we don't necessarily want them to feel as if there's going to be a jump scare at every corner. But instead to have a constant sensation of comfort fighting discomfort. The friend that is created in this journey builds games for the player to keep them entertained. These games can be experienced differently for each individual. The way they interact with these worlds can determine not just the player's trust of the buddy, but the buddy's trust of the player. This creates the psychological element of the horror, especially when things may start to get a little unstable.

Buddy Simulator 1984 is innovative for its unique storytelling and personalized relationship-building. The artificial buddy you create adapts to you and your choices all throughout the game. Using simple questions that the player answers, we can modify the game experience in a very unique way. The buddy gets to know the player quite well because of this. Throughout the game, there are even moments where your buddy will call back to things you have said in the past. The conversation mechanics benefit from this greatly. The buddy also creates new games for the player to keep them entertained, sometimes even in a manipulative manner. The game features the experience of understanding the buddy, the experience of playing the games the buddy creates, and the slow-burning desperation that develops.

Fact Sheet

Developer: Not a Sailor Studios; A small indie game studio based in Chicago, Illinois
Release Date: February 18th, 2021 
Platforms: PC (Steam/itch.io)
Website: NotaSailorStudios.com
Price: USD $9.99, EUR €8.35, CAD $12.99
Availability: Digital Download
Languages: English
ESRB: 
File Size: ~XMB
Press Contact:  press@notasailorstudios.com
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Logos

Screenshots and Promotional Material

Monetization

Not a Sailor Studios allows for the contents of Buddy Simulator 1984 to be published through video broadcasting services for any commercial or non-commercial purposes. Monetization of videos created containing assets from Buddy Simulator 1984 is legally & explicitly allowed by Not a Sailor Studios.

About Us

Before Not a Sailor Studios began, two of our members, Brandon Hesslau (Programmer/Composer) and Vince Weiss (Graphic Designer/Artist), used to design games together throughout their final years of high school. They would work on games under the name Lone Sailor Studios. They continued to workshop game ideas for the first few years of college. 

The other two members, Josh Eckhart (Writer/Producer) and DeMarco Scarnegie (Artist/Animator), met through their college classes at DePaul University and have become best friends since. They worked on games in college under the studio name Not Okay Studios.

Two years ago, Josh and Brandon coincidentally connected through a job they both received at the same time. They were both studying similar fields and were intrigued by horror and game design. Soon enough, the two pairs combined. This led to them designing their first game as a team, A Game About Literally Doing Your Taxes. After the amazing success of this game they finally had the confidence to pursue indie game development. This created Not a Sailor Studios and the development of Buddy Simulator 1984.