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"peopleing the centers and distances, the faraway / Sparrows scurrying / Unknown their resting-place." is so good, I am again and again amazed at how people make these combinations sing. Thanks for playing and come back again soon!

Please do return! I'm really impressed with how cohesive your poem turned out - each line pours smoothly into the next, which feels like the result of some very well-tuned line choices.

Congrats on the release! It was such fun to play around with the previous version, and I'm looking forward to digging around in this one!

I love the enjambments throughout this: "the breeze is a child, shy / whacking", "cellular tablets, and cellular / avocado", "the sound of sweeping / Virtue" -- all such great combinations!

Considering where you pulled that last line from, you really did a broad exploration of the house! I like imagining you with a nearly-full paper frantically pulling on every doorknob and drawer handle possible.

those three little notches of different jump sizes is so incredibly satisfying, and their little noises are bonking around my brain all day

For sure! It's honestly great timing to get into the form -- the first Game Poems literary magazine came out just a couple months ago, which includes a good range of that kind of work: https://gamepoems.itch.io/game-poems-issue-1-first-moves. One of the editorial leads, Jordan Magnuson, also put out a book a few years ago on the topic, which is a great starting place too: https://www.gamepoemsbook.com/. 

Honestly it's still a very fluid genre and there's a lot of folks on Itch putting stuff out in the process of figuring out it's constraints -- the "game-poems" tag on here is a great sampler too: https://itch.io/games/tag-game-poem.
 

Thanks! I hadn't thought too much about the player(s) reading the parts out loud also kind of working like a performance in itself.... that's giving me some helpful ideas!

Hey, thanks for playing - it sounds like the intended experience really made sense to you, I'm pleased to hear it. And doubly glad to serve as a first encounter with game poems -- there's some really interesting work in the form all over Itch, perhaps it's something up your alley for a future work too?

This really encapsulates the weird social games of figuring out one another at a party -- after a few rounds I was very much feeling the pressure of "oh don't pester this person too much or else everything's going to feel bad but also what is their deal???"

It's a good touch (and a challenge), too, that I'd often forget about keeping track of the party's vibes - by the time I would realize we were on the verge of a Bad Time the door was often too far away for me to leave in time. Reminded me a lot of trying and failing to extricate myself from a house party on its dying legs in my 20s.

This is remarkable - the most simultaneously impressed and unsettled I've ever been with a Bitsy game. Really impressive balance between clarity and noise, especially with the Bitsy visual constraints.

this is a very witty implementation of the idle clicker mechanics!

hell yeah i was one sinful eel

The sound design on this is phenomenal, as is the efficiency at which you start feeling out how to navigate the mechanics. Really holistically remarkable work.

Thanks for playing, Jordan - those transitions were fun to fiddle with.

I really love all the grasses in this! They slow down the walk just enough to make the navigational experience that much more intentional. Definitely felt like a little wolf sniffing out some tasty groundhogs.

Fantastic -- what a great way of working with the constraints of bitsy and the jam! I really enjoyed this.

really excellent work here - amazing unity with the mechanics and hesitation and time-sensitive freaking out about what do next. really got my heart tied up in knots. 10/10

I love the screen/scroll as a densely-packed woods that's a bit hard to navigate. Also felt very accurate to the concept for the player to start interacting with objects only to learn, too late, that early choices were already impacting the results!

Saw this in the Indiepocalypse discord - I love this art style so much! I'd very much be a fan of a whole series of exploration games in this style.

The sharp transition definitely comes through (and works very well with the piece!) But yeah, fine tuning the Bitsy dialogue timing with exits can be real finicky sometimes!

Love the use of sound here, and how the dark really sneaks up on you. I'm already looking forward to your next Bitsy train trip!

When I played it, there's a bit of a sudden transition that happens as the "So dark." line appears, as if the scene changes in the middle of the dialogue generation -- is that sharp cut intentional?

I liked these dogs a lot, mourned in their red loss, rejoiced in their blue return.

Love a good full-keyboard control scheme! Really fits the poetics of the piece too.

loved the various implications from each of these little spaces and their relationality -- this would make an excellent exhibition piece, I could really imagine it projected onto a gallery wall or something like that!

I loved this, especially the feeling of figuring out just how far one can stretch their attention from what's already occurred. Thinking about the ordained fate of an auto-scroller.

This is really well-done. I'm struck by the sense of pressure with every touch -- even the first scene, leaving the player to figure out if/how to reach out and touch a figure from the back, really embodies the vulnerability/power dynamics that keep expanding as play continues.

oh man I love this concept, currently imagining many many dice with catastrophic numbers and overly complex requirements for rolling them. the wheels are spinning for all kinds of meta-narrative adventures with this system.

I love this! "the coffee that's / someone moving in. / the smell of oil on / Whole Pools of it" is such a great series of combinations. And I can tell from some of these lines that you really explored the place! Thanks for playing!

Love the little bass undertone that shows up if you choose to linger a bit before getting on the bus!

⬛ ⬛ ⬛ 🟨 ⬛ ⬛ ⬛

Finally had a chance to play this! Really lovely -- and I especially loved the kibble minigame transition. I could see an opportunity for a whole series of dog care microgames!

absolute STYLE this issue

(First a major thanks to ruin for making this tool in the first place, I have several projects that couldn't exist without it, thank you!)

If you've also been struggling to get pixsy to work on your end, I just wanted to report a successful workaround I've used as of August 2025 -- pixsy does work with existing game data made using Old Bitsy (7.12), conveniently hosted on itch by Rob Duarte here. Once I get all of my image tiles set up using pixsy/old bitsy in this way, I then simply take my game data from 7.12 and paste it into the new version of bitsy. As long as I didn't do too much editing in old bitsy aside from setting up my room tiles, it transfers and functions in new bitsy well enough as I create the rest of my game (though it does get glitchy from time to time).

Anyway, just thought I'd drop a line here in case anyone's in a similar position as me and hoping to extend the longevity of this great tool.

can't wait to get a campaign going with this baby

IT'S MY HOUSE AND I CAN RUN ANYWHERE I WANT IN IT, THANK YOU

This is so good! I need to keep dipping into it to find more and more of the design flourishes you've packed throughout. Perhaps the first Sisyphus game that's earnestly captured me wanting to keep trying again and again for more.

never give up, sisyphus! you've got it this time!

Mario Kart GB is super neat and I had a lot of fun fiddling around with it! But also, if you were able to put in the time and labor to make it, I think you could also make all kinds of fun/strange things (both in GB Studio and plenty of other neat little tools). I vote that you get weird with it!