Shooter dev gaslights players about fake Space Whales for seven years, then sneaks them into the game
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Summary
The chance of a Space Whale spawning in the arcade space shooter, Nova Drift, is 1 in 7,777, however, players have found they have been appearing in the game.
Despite the game’s designer, Jeffrey Nielson, insisting they were not real when he originally launched the game in 2017 via a Kickstarter campaign, he added the Space Whales as a running gag.
After first introducing the concept via a April Fool’s joke in 2023 and popping the Space Whales into the game files, despite giving the files confusing names to cover his tracks, he ultimately let players discover them.
As part of the ongoing in-game myth, he has also donated 20% of the game’s sales to the WDC Whale and Dolphin Conservation charity as part of World Ocean Day Festival 2025.
