Hello! I’ve been Beta testing a new thing on Gun Monkeys for the last few weeks. It seems to be working, so here’s the announcement:

As part of ongoing efforts to keep indie Deathmatch shooter “Gun Monkeys” the success it almost definitely deserves to be, the game now automatically generates free Steam keys for anyone struggling to find a game on the server, so they can play against their friends instead.

“It’s a unique solution to a frustrating situation”, typed Size Five Games’ Dan Marshall. “Despite universally positive reviews, Gun Monkeys just hasn’t sold enough to keep servers perpetually-buzzing with players. It’s infuriating, but the important thing to do now is to make sure the people who have bought the game can enjoy it as intended.”

As of the most recent update, if you’re sitting on an empty server for a few minutes, and no one comes along to play against, the game will now fling you a free Steam key for you to gift to a chum.

“The most frequent comment in my inbox at the moment is ‘this game is amazing, why aren’t more people playing it?’ Well, hopefully this move will bring in new interested players too, since they’ll always be able to play friends when servers are quiet.”

“Free keys are limited per player, and it won’t generate free copies for ever, but for now it’s a fun and unusual way to combat the Curse of the Indie Multiplayer Game. Let’s see how it goes.”