Presskit

Game Title	Solbrand
Developer & Publisher	Dead People Dreaming
Platform(s)	Steam
In Development Since	April, 2025
Release Date	TBA
Genre	Puzzle Exploration Adventure
Number of Players	Single Player

Gritty oceanpunk meets norse mysticism in this archaeological puzzle adventure game set in reimagined Uppsala, Sweden.

As the new Spook on HMS Solbrand you dive deep into a past steeped in grand norse myth and quiet local legend. Command your submersible, survey sunken ruins, uncover puzzling fragments, commune with the dead, and untangle a knot of cosmic proportions: Why is the sun so loud?

Main draw for the game will be exploration in a rich and poetically evocative setting with lively(!) portraits of people and places, its unique blend of sci-fi and occult norse mysticism, and intricate puzzles and items that can and must be studied in extremely high detail in order to reach deeper into the mystery.

If you liked Sunless Skies, Disco Elysium, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective (board game), Return of the Obra Dinn or Dredge, this game aims to be for you!

Media

Play

Assets

Download all assets in .zip

• Keyart (jpg, png, layered psd)
• Company and Game Logos (eps, png)
• Screenshots
• Announce Trailer Video
• Developer Portrait

Examples

Developer

Hej! My name is Mattias Astenvald. I’ve been in the AAA game industry for a decade and change, starting out as Concept Artist Intern on Wolfenstein: The New Order, and most recently as Art Director on Indiana Jones and the Great Circle. Today I am the founder of Dead People Dreaming and working on my first solo-developed game, Solbrand.

Why this game?

I was born and raised in Skogstibble, a rural hamlet outside Uppsala. In a nearby field stands the Skillsta stone, a beautifully carved runic inscription featuring a winged dragon, likely around a thousand years old. It reads:

“Joger and Fastger and Örik let raise the stone after their father, Borger the renowned. Himself carved Örik these runes after his father. Interpret who can.”

ᛁᚯᚴᛂᛦ ᛆᚢᚴ ᚠᛆᛋᛏᚴᛂᛦ ᛆᚢᚴ ᛆᚢᚱᛁᚴᚱ ᛚᛁᛏᚢ ᚱᛁᛏᛆ ᛋᛏᛂᚿ ᚤᚠᛏᛁᛦ ᛒᚯᚱᚴᛂᛦ ᚠᛆᚦᚢᚱ ᛋᛁᚿ ᚠᚱᛂᚼᚿ
ᛋᛂᛚᚠᚱ ᚼᛁᚮᚴ ᛅᚢᚱᛁᚴᚱ ᚤᚠᛏᛁ ᛋᛁᚿ ᚠᛆᚦᚢᚱ ᚱᚢᚿᛁ ᚦᛁᛋᛆ ᚱᚮᚦᛁ ᛋᛆ ᚴᚢᚾᛁ

Besides the rather funny shrug of a final line, the stone presents a minor mystery in that it is the only known specimen made by Örik, yet its intricacy suggests plenty of experience. A likely explanation is that he was a craftsman of less durable material like wood or textile, and that most of his work has been devoured by time.

Recently I paid the stone a visit and was baffled by how visible it is from the same road my school bus drove on every day when I was young. I must have passed by hundreds of times, yet I’d never seen or even heard of it until now, at 33 years old.

Around this time I had happened upon an amazing blog (in Swedish, sorry!) by a local amateur(?) historian sharing tidbits from their excursions in and around Uppsala. It opened my eyes to how absolutely jam-packed the city is with tiny details with deep roots like this that I’d been completely blind to; I began to do my own research, and quickly noticed how seemingly uneventful places I’d pass on my runs now turned exciting and mythical, and just about every street corner started shimmering in this new historical light. For example:

• The student dorm crowned ‘Imperfektum’ due to its ever-changing labyrinthine layout, the caretaker of which is a bit of a mystery on his own! (more on this another time)
• The never-seen 4th band of Rudbeck’s ‘Atlantica’ burnt to ash in the Grand Cathedral tower during the terrible city fire of 1702.
• Emanuel Swedenborgs mysteriously missing (later returned!) skull.
• Ruins of the old archbishop’s fort buried mere inches under your feet in the University park (where I’ve unknowingly sat to eat a lunch sandwich from Ofvandahl’s many times!)

But also smaller stories, like:

• How the fence around Flustret is actually the fence from around old Restaurant ‘Rullan’ of UFO-fame¹.
• The five-pronged gas candelabre and its 100-year stint of plaza-hopping around town, or its lion-adorned smaller siblings seen once on every street corner (one of which now holds the sign to the pump house by Islandsfallet).
• That the ‘Iron Bridge’, today upstream, used to be where S:t Olof’s bridge is now, or how the squareish insets into the city river profile used to be occupied by large laundry-houses bustling with activity.
• And speaking of the river, the open-air bath by Eddaspången! And the Ultuna helmet (and sword)! And Celsius’ observatory, the one crooked building making a break in the city grid.
• And, and, and …!

There is an unending list of interesting, meaningful, funny, touching, or inspiring marks made by real people and events but that I believe very few know about. It strikes me how strange it is that in this digital age I can know so much about the goings-on across the globe, yet almost nothing of where I actually live — despite there being so much that would evidently enrich a life! No matter where in the world you are I’m convinced that, should you begin to scratch a little on the surface, you would find the same to be true. I would like to see more local treasures brought to light and cherished.

So in April 2025 I decided to go the way of Örik and try my hand at something new: developing an indie game with the aim of celebrating these local historical tidbits and mysteries — the mundane magic hidden in plain sight all around us.

Solbrand is a work of fiction, but with just about every inch inspired by real places, events, and people, I hope it may spark curiosity to learn more of the real stories. I leave you with this snippet from a poem found in the game, written by Gösta Wennerbrage:

In my nosy youth,
To wise cellar I ventured,
Great Burden I found,
in knowledge there kept,

In dark writ a terrible light,
The swallow flew too close,
Ever burnt into my mind,
Say was it madness — o’ well!

Then carry me Cape-wards,
down where the gates close,
for now my footpath grows thin,
it’ll be the Loony Bin

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Footnotes

1. From the newspaper ‘Upsala Tidning’, August 31st 1880: “The night between the 30th and 31st was observed around 9 [pm] a celestial body under very peculiar circumstances. It first appeared in the east and then slowly passed overhead, whereafter it gradually disappeared as a fading dot into space. The light, which when first observed was exceptionally clear and about four to five times as bright as Venus … What particularly garnered attention was that small seemingly spark-like particles repeatedly separated from the main body. The phenomenon lasted three to four minutes.” It continues: “The writer and, as far as we know, several other people, have been befuddled by the hot air balloon launched from Rullan yesterday evening, on which Bengal lights were lit by fuse.” ↩