SilverLake is out today on itch. Free to play, runs in your browser.
It’s an idle game with a specific setting: a lake next to a breached nuclear reactor. You’re not fighting anyone. You’re cleaning it up.
What you do
- Clear contaminated debris from the water
- Rebuild the food chain, starting with the things that can survive the conditions
- Coax larger species back as the water clears
- Watch the lake come back to life over time
It’s incremental, so the loop is the usual one — small inputs, slow growth, satisfying milestones — but the theme cuts against the genre’s usual “stack the numbers” framing. The numbers here represent something getting less broken.
Why this theme
I wanted to make something short with a clear emotional arc. Most idle games are about accumulation. This one is about repair. The lake is worse than it should be, and over a few hours of play, it isn’t anymore.
What was broken can be mended.
That’s the whole pitch.
Play it
cattrall.itch.io/silverlake — no install, no account, just open the page. If you enjoy it, the itch page has a comment box and I read every one.