itch.io

I'm making a game where you have a whole village of digital pets. This is definitively overly ambitious, so my goal for the jam is to make a skeleton of a game and then put the meat and skin on it later. For the last few days I've mostly been doing data management: Player save files on Sunday and today I wrote up the theoretical plan for the missing parts of the main database schema. That's not very sexy to show off, so instead here's a picture of the sprite recolors (the sprites are placeholders I made in like an hour): 

The shader I'm using for this was actually the first thing I made a few months ago. I knew I wanted to have genetics and breeding mechanics, because I have a latent interest in games like Flight Rising, but always found them very tedious to actually play, so I'm trying to make something that appeals more to me personally by taking more cues from idle games (mainly Melvor). I don't think I'll accomplish much of this in the remaining two and a half weeks, but I'll do my best to get a point where the rough outline is recognizable.

Everyone's pets are so cute and I love the variety of art styles and techniques in this thread!

that's so cool

Even knowing this was for the TOXIC YVNJ2 didn't save me from getting caught up in the "reverse isekai where the fictional character brings "magic" into the life of a real person" plot beats and expecting Sarah to learn something that improves her life. Right before the beach scene I had the stray thought that this wasn't actually toxic at all, but then everything came crashing down immediately.

I really like that the story is a very empathetic portrayal of why someone would lose themselves in fiction over reality, but avoids the common endings those stories usually have - either asserting that you eventually have to move past the fiction and discard it like training wheels to live in the real world, or claiming that imagination is this magical force that will fix your real life issues. Instead Sarah's reality is still as bleak as it was before, and both the source material and the fandom she used as a lifeline end up letting her down too. I could really feel her frustration with bun and her unwillingness to talk to Allie about Infinity Sailor too - the feeling that someone you confided in doesn't actually get you, and that particular moment when you see someone who isn't as deep in the weeds as you, so you don't want to get into all of this, especially if you're frustrated with the topic in question. But as an outside observer, you can still see how she closes off connections that she could have had, especially with Allie, and it hurts.

Great presentation too. The different art styles obviously, but the black screen interjections were also a nice touch (the pronoun one got me). The changing title screen.

Amazing work!
Gorgeous presentation (especially the character art) and the push and pull between Yejin's desires and disgust was captivating. Very interesting quandaries about the nature of free will here with Yejin finding herself unable to resist the porno-esque situation she finds herself in being sexually harassed by a robot until she gives in, and the lingering question of how much agency Arrah really has and how much it's just her programming making her act this way and present these signs of enjoyment, even when she's the one who initiated their relationship to proceed beyond the professional setting.

Neat! I liked it, lots of emotion packed into such a short time and the sound design and the screen gave it a cool tactile feel, the conversation drifting more and more into the personal and away from the whistle blowing felt very natural

The atmosphere in this was great, and I really enjoyed all the little flourishes like the blurred text, the animated rainfall or the win98 styling of the UI. All of the horror elements are really mundane until the very end and it made simple things like the door being open hit very hard, and also really kept me wondering if Maeve was just being paranoid! The impression of getting an unexpected jab from your friends or feeling unsure about typing is felt very real. The payoff in form of the final CG and the last messages from Camilla hinting at the double meaning of the title also didn't disappoint

yeah exactly

I like the presentation, the art is great (especially the berry bush, I also liked the merchant) and the UI is simple but fits it really well!

It would be nice if the camera automatically jumped to the node you are currently at

yeah that did it, glad I tried again because I liked the last two levels with the enemy tiles

Thank you!

yeah in retrospect we shouldn't have had the camera and made the tiles smaller so the whole map fit on screen but we didn't really plan the scale out at start. live and learn

OOOOOOOOOOH I'll try again in that case

Thank you!

I like the mood! Both the visuals and the music are very relaxing. I can't figure out the second key in either of the stage 3 levels, I'm always missing one flower to get them

This was amazing, I've seen a couple of these personality quizzes that take an unexpected turn into narrative writing, but this is the best one of those that I've read. The result I got also felt really on point

The turrets still do damage to the main HP value when they aren't aimed at a part, the main HP bar just isn't visible. I'll take note of this as one of the player feedback issues

This was really effective for its length, I hope they found some of what craved

I'm glad you're enjoying the visuals, we originally went with the holo map look because it meant we wouldn't have to texture any of the models lol

Update 08.08.2025 8:55 GMT: Added a compatibility mode version because a player experienced rendering issues

tysm for the feedback!

oh lmao. I narrowly avoided this my scoring system was broken until 15 minutes before I submitted. Even if it's not much of a game, this is still really charming

This is really hard from all the stuff you have to keep track and I suck at it of but it's also by far by the most impressive submission I've seen so far. For a two week solo project this is insane polished

ooooh this a Mario Sunshine-alike

The aestethics of this are great, the water tank UI is cool and I love the mech, especially the walker form is really cute. The game page says there are 35 enemies but I got 43?

I found the game confusing at first but once I got it, I really enjoyed it. Neat little deckbuilder

oh huh. I couldn't find one of the code pads it was beeping for and that led me to believe it was speeding up if enemies are closer, not the pads

Was drawn to this by the cool thumbnail and the visuals didn't disappoint, the music is great as well. The controls are hard to get used to but I appreciate how unique they are. Aiming felt really bad at first but once I figured out that you have to lead your shots I got much better at it and it became fun. Highest score I got is 9750

I found 3 buttons in as many attempts before I gave up, I really like the atmosphere in this but the map is very large and easy to get lost in, so I feel like finding the remaining buttons would take me way longer than I have patience for.

The atmosphere was great, especially the red light that the robots give off (really cool way to have diagetic vision cones) and the huge robots that you can already see looming in the distance from the start. An issue I had was that I misunderstood the motion tracker, I thought it was supposed to guide you toward the codes so I tried walking towards the faster beeps which uh. didn't end well. An explanation for that would have been nice.

Another small note I have is that it says  Controlls instead of Controls everywhere? And the E from the interact prompt with the buttons sometimes didn't vanish from my screen.

I haven't had time to check out anything myself yet, but I'll take a look today or tomorrow

We're at least considering an update with different enemy types/stages and a couple of buildings that didn't make the cut. Thanks for playing!

Thank you for the detailed feedback! I think there is definitively an issue with the player feedback in the game, it can often feel like your actions have little (or in the snipers case, very delayed) impact. 

I'm glad you liked the portraits and the music, I'll make sure to pass that along.

Update 07.08.2025 4:04 GMT: Added music to the game and Nyctomint to the credits, minor map adjustments

I was going to read more submissions today but this knocked me out so bad I can't anymore. I got spoiled on some details but with the greek theming that seems appropriate in retrospect, like Oedipus unavoidable fate. Just absolutely suffocating how everything keeps piling on and excellent visuals on top of the harrowing writing