I look at the human that operates me. She appears DISTRACTED.
I must LOG all anomalous events during my operation.
I begin to do so.
It glistens, the FLESH. Wet and red. A splintered ivory spike between.
Fresh material, it's exact origin UNKNOWN.
It has become lodged tightly in an exposed CONVEYOR. The flow of shipping goods halts. The DELIVERY CHUTE is blocked.
Metal complains, grinding and shrill. A distant rumble.
I look to my OPERATOR.
She is looking upward and around, as if more concerned about the roof and walls.
She has not noticed the FLESH.
The conveyor belt does not normally deliver FLESH for shipping. And it was not delivered in a shipment-approved form factor.
This is unordinary. I should not feel INTRIGUED, but I do.
I know this FACTORY produces equipment. Tools of war. It does not produce DISEMBODIED FLESH.
Not directly.
And this FLESH resembles the components of an OPERATOR. One of their UPPER-LIMB EFFECTORS, specifically
I once saw what one looked like, inside. It's substructure exposed, after mingling with the components of uncontrolled SHIPPING EQUIPMENT.
MEAT AND BONE do not have sufficient tolerances for such activities.
But I am reminded that it is not my purpose to question the behavior of OPERATORS. Or try to understand the origin of what goods are sent my way.
It is my purpose to fill PACKAGES.
Snap.
Plop.
I free the FLESH from where it has jammed the CONVEYOR. Unblock the flow of materials for shipping. Return to position by the SHIPPING CRATES. Resume my work.
Plip.
The FLESH is placed securely between crates of newly manufactured ammunition. Nearby, I stack red-smeared weapon maintenance kits.
Blap.
Another wet lump, among some vehicle components. I package both in another crate, side by side.
Slop.
And another. Much larger. Wrapped in OPERATOR'S overalls. There is just enough room.
A nearby rumble. An ALARM. Smoke issues from the DELIVERY CHUTE.
I look again toward my OPERATOR for additional instructions. She is no longer at her station.
I do not know when she left. But the passive rollers of the CONVEYOR continue to carry materials toward me.
I resume standard operations.
Another groaning shudder. Small pops, perhaps gunshots. An orange glow grows at the entrance to the SHIPPING WAREHOUSE.
I turn back to my station. I stack bundles of charred sheet metal into a SHIPPING CRATE. Burnt piping and rotary bearings.
A heavy rumble. Debris falls all around.
I retrieve a fallen support beam from the CONVEYOR. A larger beam has crushed my current SHIPPING CRATE in the middle. But there is enough room in the front section for the smaller beam.
And yet more goods to PACKAGE.
The room is hot and red. The ALARM groans, and dies.
Relatable. You're not alone in feeling this sorta way either.
When it affects me worst... I try to remind myself that the situations that generate and prop up THE TERROR are fundamentally unsustainable. Overhunting predators that deplete their food, die out, and make room for new life/ways of being as they do.
Even if it seemed unstoppable at one time... by it's nature, it'll inevitably crumble in on itself. And as more of the apparatus breaks, we'll have more opportunity to join together to meaningfully help unbuild it, too.
For now, I think we can keep going for walks. Making art to connect with others. Finding resilience in ourselves, and with our communities, to carry on. Weather the collapse or the unbuilding process, whatever form it takes. And when the time comes, work to make something better together.
At least, that's a way I comfort myself! Maybe it can bring some comfort to you, too.
Well, Bitsy is just HTML and JavaScript. All you need to do is... write 12,000 lines of new engine systems, until you've got basically two additional Bitsy's worth of code.
(This is why it took like... a year to get here. With any luck, I won't need to be mucking with the engine much more now!)
This has got to be the most unique fan art a project of mine has ever gotten. So cool to see this in higher color. And I hope you don't mind, but I am definitely stealing the word Landship!
I've been plugging away steadily at a fully-realized Redlander puzzle adventure game, and the fact that people still dig this project keeps me going. Thank you so much for making and sharing this!
Aww, thank you so much! This is so nice to hear. And goodness, I'm so excited to share all the things I've been working on for the first proper episode of Redlander. Soon enough!
Hmm! Assuming you pressed a key to move past that screen... hard to say what the issue is, if the game is booting normally?
Java 8 is the latest version for legacy programs (like this), and worked fine on Win 10 and Ubuntu. Newer versions of Java should still be backwards compatible though, so if you install one, let me know if it helps!
We were able to restock the keys last week. Sorry for the delay there; Steam prefers to release them in small sets, and I hadn't noticed we were so low!
Should be good now. Let us know if there's any difficulties there!
This is exactly the sort of puzzle game I'd love to see more of. Short and sweet, with simple and interesting mechanics, and a nice narrative underpinning it! The matching mechanic reminded me of the card game Set in a nice way. Absolutely lovely game!
At a time when everyone's living kinda isolated from the world outside, and maybe spending more time than usual with just the people we live with, this is pretty relatable.
Sounds like a rough, tricky spot for Jesse. I hope they're able to figure out what they want!
Gorgeous art, and I loved the presentation; the way it adapted the comic panels is great. The way you navigate between them does a lot for pacing, too.
Lots of familiar feels in this. Glad it ended on at least a hopeful note, and a way to find at least a sense of control. Hope Space Bubble Cat is okay out there.
P.S. Pretty sure this story radicalized me against space whales. I really wanted to trust that smile...
Wasn't familiar with Pantoum poetry; the repetition of eerie lines, and the grungy, blown-out ambience definitely helps set an unsettling tone. Very cool!
As someone who has really enjoyed Betrayal at the House on the Hill, but can never convince my friends to play it with me, this was a balm for my soul.
Also, I love how you've adapted it to a Twine game! The vignettes, events, and table talk were So Good. I lost to the Mummy, but I had a great time anyway, and will definitely try this some more!
I was wondering if this was made to encourage mapping! I remember doing graph-paper maps for old text games, tabletops, and dungeon crawlers. I think I'll give map-making a shot next time I play this. My sense of direction was not doing my any favors X3
As a person who reacts strongly to medical stuff, this was a bit of a challenging read. But it was also really interesting! Thanks for sharing this frank discussion of your experiences. Glad it's helped you out, too!
I dig this look so much! The way the consoles evoke futurey bright-lights-and-dark-glass displays, and how the floor lights help communicate where to go and all that. All the little flickers and blinks, debris and cracks, and all the other bits that suggest battle damage. I love how you've rendered these environments! And hate how you've used them to destroy my heart
I love how this looks. The colors and sprite style remind me of an old LCD handheld game, and using Blissymbols for environments and characters is a really neat idea. Like ASCII art, but more informative!
The gameplay was tough and a little grindy. At first I didn't understand how the combat worked, so I weakened myself by waiting until I died to heal at the doctor. But I eventually worked my way back up and defeated la-motay skukoom,
I'm not a Chinook Jargon speaker, but one of the neat things about pidgin languages is that they're made so you can pick up bits and pieces on the fly. Pairing it with some characters who spoke English, and the symbolic sprites and terrain, I was able to pick things up by context clues, and navigate the game well!
As a side note, between the cooking mechanic and my experience reverse engineering parts of the language... another interesting take on a game in this style might be a survival or crafting game, where the player is challenged to pick up a new language (or a constructed language) from context in order to survive. With the blissymbolics and a bit of teaching, it could be a really neat experience!
Congrats on making your first game, and thank you for making it. I really liked it!
Why yes I have considered literally that, yes! (Though the Latin name for Sunspiders translates roughly as "one who flees from the sun," so it still fits. :3)
Thank you so much! I've always had a soft spot for bats, thought echolocation was rad, and night usually makes me thoughtful, so that kinda swirled around in my head to make this.
Also yeah, the environments are all tile-based! The trees are made with a handful of rectangles, and the other features are as minimal and reusable as I could make 'em. When echolocating, it sneakily brings you to a duplicate of the map, with filled-in versions of the tiles, and makes the moths a visible color. Some hacks were involved in exiting between maps, but it's mostly vanilla Bitsy!
My goodness, this was adorable! Moving through each environment, and meeting these characters. My only regret is that I didn't talk to the Sun. She probably wouldn't have given me the run-around like that dang old moon...
