Silo 7 is an arcade puzzle game in which you dig through a decommissioned nuclear silo, collect fuel cells and climb out before the countdown reaches zero. It is available now on itch.io and also has its page on Steam. This is the story behind the Silo 7 game, from its game jam prototype to the forty sectors of the full version.
A countdown as a starting point
It all began during the GMTK Game Jam 2026, whose theme was "Count down". We wanted to take the rules of Boulder Dash, the classic where you dig, collect gems and get flattened by rocks if you stop paying attention, and place them in a setting that explains the timer. A decommissioned nuclear silo whose self-destruct sequence has just started came to mind quickly. We told the story of that jam, together with Emberfall, in our article GMTK Game Jam 2026: two games, one countdown.
Dig, dodge and get out in time
You play a scavenger searching the silo. You need to collect enough fuel cells to unlock the escape hatch, then reach it before time runs out. The level is a grid: you dig through dirt, push monitors sideways with the arrow keys and stay out of the way of anything that falls. Those CRT monitors are the hazards of the game, and we call them "the AI that falls on you". When the clock drops into its last seconds, the screen pulses red and shakes.
Every run gives you three lives. Restarting a sector with the R key costs a life, finishing a sector faster earns a time bonus, and the game remembers your best score for a full run. Movement between tiles is smoothed for the player, the monitors and the cells, which makes a big difference to how the game feels in your hands.
From a game jam to forty sectors
The jam version was short and rough. We kept it exactly as it was submitted, as an archive version, and rebuilt the game around the feedback we received. The early sectors were reworked, the ending was rewritten, and the full game now has forty hand-built sectors split into three progression gates, with a complete ending sequence.
Each sector is built around a single problem to solve: waiting for a monitor to fall, choosing a route, clearing a path by pushing monitors, handling a stack that collapses in a chain, or watching the rhythm of a patrol before crossing. Enemies follow predictable paths, so a defeat almost always comes from a decision the player made. On the technical side, a level is a plain text file where each character stands for one tile, which lets us test a sector idea in a few minutes.
The Recycler, the machine that changes the rules
In the full version, a machine called the Recycler turns monitors into extra fuel cells. You drop a monitor into it, and the window to take advantage of it lasts twenty seconds. An illustration explains how it works before the first sector that needs it, so players understand the mechanic without reading a long tutorial. The late sectors then add patrols that force you to combine the Recycler, the timer and falling monitors.
A game built with LΓVE 2D
Silo 7 is written in Lua with the LΓVE 2D framework, which we use regularly for our prototypes. The look combines pixel art tiles and sprites, an ambient industrial drone, retro sound effects and the Press Start 2P font. The game is available in English, Italian and French. The sprites, tiles and backdrops come from Luis Zuno (ansimuz), Free Game Assets / CraftPix, Will Tice and Elthen, and we are grateful to them. If you are curious about Lua, our Lua & Love2D tag gathers the articles about this tool, and our full beginner course is available in French: Apprenez Γ crΓ©er vos propres jeux 2D avec Lua et LΓVE 2D.
Play Silo 7 on itch.io and Steam
The game runs on Windows with no installation. The free demo includes the first ten sectors and ends with the full ending cinematic, the archive version of the jam entry stays free, and the full game is pay-what-you-want from β¬3.99 on itch.io. The Steam page is live: Silo 7 on Steam. Here is the trailer, to see the silo in motion. The game also has its own page in our portfolio: Silo 7, arcade puzzle game.
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