History of Glitchhikers

First Drive

In early 2014, friends and collaborators of Silverstring Media came together with the idea for a small, experimental game: an artistic exploration of the experience of driving on a highway late at night. 

From that core premise unfolded all the aspects of what became Glitchhikers: First Drive — dreamy, surreal low-poly art; experimental synthy and broken music; the calm yet strangely omniscient voice over the radio; interaction that gave you a little control but never let you stray from the highway in front of you; and meandering conversations with weird strangers about all the things our minds wander to late at night, untethered from the demands of the real world.

It released in May 2014 and suddenly got the attention of critics and altgame fans. Kill Screen said, “Glitchhiker’s guided introspection has taught me more about the universe and myself in 15 minutes than most other games manage across a number of hours.” Indie Statik called it “one to watch.” Technology Tell explained it thus: “Glitchhikers doesn’t seek to judge, only to commiserate; to articulate the fear and despair and hope that flourishes in the kind of darkness that drew stories out of our ancient ancestors as they huddled around their guttering fires and struggled to impose meaning on the void around them.” 

Glitchhikers was a finalist for Best Indie Game of 2014 at the Canadian Videogame Awards.

More to Say

Glitchhikers stood as a singular experience, a contained 20 minute game that did a lot of heavy lifting. It was always intended to be a kind of universal experience, something anyone could come to and find familiarity in the journey and the ideas. 

But not everyone drives. What about trains? Planes? The journey type is an excuse to surround you in a liminal space, an in-between, a time of transition and change and openness... But there was so much more we could do, more we could say, ways to bring even more people into the experience. And the world was so much different now. We always thought we could go back to Glitchhikers.

In 2020, we found that opportunity. Funding, and support from publisher Fellow Traveller let us drive back into the world of Glitchhikers, expanding the original concept along its natural paths: new types of journeys, each with its own feel and substance and vibe; a dozen new characters, and dozens of new conversations and topics; new voices to guide you, alongside the familiar old ones; hours of music to accompany your travel.

With all the original collaborators and a newly expanded team to help out, Glitchhikers: The Spaces Between was forged, and released on March 31st, 2022.

The Journey

Along the way, we’ve worked with a lot of great people and had a lot of great conversations. Go to our devlog to find all the blogs, videos, and talks we’ve done, or check out the video gallery below for behind-the-scenes chats, interviews, and playthroughs.