https://sam-palumbo.itch.io/mykro
I have to tell someone about this one, because it got me good.
Mykro starts small. You're Cordy, a guy about the size of an ant, and your first friend is literally an ant you win over with berries. Cute, relaxing, I figured I knew what kind of game it was.
Then the sun went down!
The music changes, the grass goes dark, and a wolf spider comes out of the dark straight at you. It's huge. I was on my ant with my little jumping spider next to me, and we just barely took it down. After that I spent every night hiding in my firefly's light, watching the sky crawl toward morning and feeling so relieved when the sun came back.
What hooked me is that every bug you befriend changes how you play. The jumping spider jumps across gaps and spins silk bridges so your other bugs can follow. The beetle charges through walls of dirt. The firefly is your lamp when you go down into the anthill, which is full of little puzzles where you push stones and find hidden switches, and the camera swings over to show you a door opening on the other side of the tunnels.
And then, much later, you can catch a wolf spider. Calm it down. Saddle it. The thing I was hiding from on night one is now what I ride around on, with my whole swarm running behind me. I actually laughed when it clicked.
It's free and runs in the browser, so there's no reason not to try the first night at least. Just keep a firefly close.