Tic-Tac-Crow

This is a little ambient bird garden simulator that evolves as you play. Birds come and go, and in the meantime you can play tic-tac-toe with them:

• Sparrows.
• Crows. (my favourite.) (plus a special crow that might be a raven?)
• Flocks of pigeons.
• Sulphur-crested cockatoos.

Also a goose will be added soon in an update! If you have any requests, please let us know in the comments what other birds you'd love to see :)

And, though we don't have a video up yet, the game has very nice subtle ambiences and the sounds of little pitter-pattering, wings flapping, tweeting, cawing, and crowing for you to enjoy, even when you don't feel like playing a game of tic-tac-toe.

If you're reading this, the Nemesis system patent is in effect (or is just about). When I set out to make a game for the Nemesis Jam, I really wasn't expecting to find the document so educational and inspiring.

The working title for Tic-Tac-Crow was "My Tic-Tac-Toe Nemesis is a Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo!"; it was made for the Nemesis Jam, a prompt to "make something in any way regarding this system." So, I made a game about birds with individual traits and parameters (My system calls them STATS and QUIRKS) that change in response to player action and other things... and we crafted a living, breathing world out of this dynamic. Birds play against each other, and you can see their individual personalities in motion!

There's no way to explicitly view these in-game (you can dig through the save file, it's pseudo-plaintext), but STATS are numerical values that every bird has (e.g. their hidden level is directly related to how good their Tic-Tac-Toe-playing AI is), while QUIRKS are pairs of triggers and reactions.

e.g.

• When my opponent cheats, I cheat back.
• When the player joins my table, I make a happy noise.

I think this all combines to create a great sense of individuality between birds, and it's something I'd like to continue using in future projects - as well as continue to work on this one.

I don't even know if what I've developed constitutes patent infringement or not, and it's frustrating to imagine a future where game design is fraught with this type of worry.

There's not much I can do about patent law, but maybe this tiny protest will make a tiny difference.

(Also, I'm publishing it on the App Store soon, which will hopefully serve to lend it extra legitimacy!)

droqen

h heron

redacted

also, thanks to everyone in my playtest discord & to my 27 lovely patrons!