Hi, we’re Cosmic Soup Games. It’s been a while.

A long time ago we were making a sci-fi detective video game called VISUALISER. It had robots and mouse clicking and it was even in three dimensions. As a result you were convinced to sign up for our newsletter. Thanks for that. (You were probably a fan of the clicking.)

Anyway, long story short, the path to turn VISUALISER from a demo to a full game was going to be a tricky one, as an unproven team working in a niche investigative genre during a, uh, interesting time in the games industry. We needed to pivot. Then one of us had twins (not pointing fingers) and now it is 2026, which is a totally different year to the year it used to be.

The good news is that we’ve been hard at work on our new game for a while. And now that it’s rapidly growing up, it is time for it to put on its velcro shoes and tiny backpack and take its first tentative steps out into the world.

We’re calling it a “rogue-ish debt builder”. You have to pay your rent by hacking a target in a supercharged version of the classic card game Go Fish. Crack your victim’s password in a dynamic dialogue system, then use your loadout of unlockable suits and items to hack their PC and drain their savings.

Life is merciless, and so is capitalism. You’re a Comp.Sci grad with massive debt, a tiny apartment, and bills piling up – and if you don’t pay rent in a week, you’ll be evicted. Do you want to be phishing people? No, not really, but that bank manager isn’t gonna miss the cash, right? Manage your Stress Meter with luxuries like a small chocolate bar ($25), or watch your hacks get harder as a result. But if you have to spend all this money to stay sane, how the hell are you gonna get out of debt?

GO PHISH already has over thirty different suits, each with unique powers and synergies. There are items, there’s a merchant, and there’s eggs in the fridge. Plus, we’re working hard to balance the “just one more round” hacking gameplay with a compelling (if morally uncomfortable) narrative. Our boss targets have unique dialogue sequences where you must socially engineer them into revealing information, which you then use to build a personality profile and crack their password.

We’ve been doing some private playtests and people have said some very nice things already. And we’re still working hard to add more content, music, and polish before we even think about shipping. We’re really enjoying working on the game, and can’t wait to get it in your hands.

It would be really cool and nice of you to WISHLIST US ON STEAM because that way Gabe knows to put us on the front page, where other beautiful and cultured folks like yourself can discover us.

Yes.

No worries. Look, this is also a heads up that this newsletter is now Officially A Thing. You can expect monthly developer updates, images, gifs (moving images), videos (moving images but different), and more.

There’s so much I’m excited to dive into here, from individual suits and plugins, to the evolution of our dialogue system, and even previewing some of the sexy tunes our music wizard Michael Zubreckyj is cooking up.

(Also I haven’t asked for permission to reveal this but we’re totally gonna have a public playtest soon… OOOH secret info. Reading pays off, for once.)

So that’s it for today. In June we’ll be back with the story of how GO PHISH came to be, and the evolution it’s already undergone during a year of development. In the meantime, I hope that someone surprises you with a coffee one day because they had one extra. That always feels nice.

Goodbye.

We’re all over the internet, so if you want to follow development elsewhere than your inbox, you can find us on Bluesky, on YouTube, on Instagram, and in our community Discord. Plus, sometimes Nick streams developer playtests of GO PHISH on Twitch.

Don’t forget to WISHLIST GO PHISH, otherwise you’ll feel like a real goof.

Know someone who might be interested in our games?

Trick question. Everyone will be interested, so tell them to subscribe to this newsletter and they’ll finally respect you.