Let's Talk About Pet Games...

Hey Phillip, great work on the game! I love Max's expressiveness and the way he reacts over the course of the game. The writing is really good and I found it really interesting that even though you "break the immersion" of the player by having Max break the 4th wall, I feel like that only served to increase my investment in the game and the personality you built. The game works really well as a meta-commentary about the genre, and on top of that, it looks and feels super clean to interact with. One thing that I might add would be some way to play with Max that isn't just the feeding, like maybe a feather toy or something that would have Max react with different dialogue to flesh out the character even more. I think the feeding as a means to progress works really well not only because the writing is so good you want to see what's next, but also because Max is done in such a way that you do want to take care of this cute thing even if he himself is aware he is not real. The choice to make ending the game a definitive action taken by the player after you build a connection with Max is super powerful and a really strong way of cementing the commentary made in the game. Overall man, huge fan of this one.

a really great experience! very rich also, saw the usage of silent hill ost before playing, so thought there would be a spooky twist. but after that it then quickly turns to a very warm and light-hearted experience. not only that,  the game then breaks the fourth wall and makes me really sad finishing it. meta elements are just so well done and surprisingly suitable for a virtual pet theme, by breaking the "immersion" the player is even more strongly bonded with the virtual pet! The simple action of feeding the pet is really effective in such context, and feels carrying so much more emotional weight. I don't know if it's intented, but i would love the little cute monster to have a name, maybe named by the player even, that way the connection between the player and pet would be stronger, people tends to connect better when they give them a name. Such a great experience and i can see a lot of potential in it. great work!

This is a really amazing meta virtual pet game! I love the discussion about Virtual Pet game. Those twists are strong. The overall art style and sound design work really well with the story line! I do wish there are more story happens with the nurse (I somehow get a villain vibe from her at the very beginning), but I get that Max is the main focus of the plot. It will be nice if  there are more than one branch of the story, like you only trigger the meta part if you make certain choice. But for a one week project you already have a really strong narrative. 

In term of critiques, I really want to see some kind of eastern eggs at the end! Another minor critique is that personally I think the control may feel more consistence if player could click through the dialogue use their mouse, so that players don't need to switch controls between the dialogue phase and the feeding phase. 

Overall this is an Amazing work! I really enjoy it!

Hey Phillip! This was a big punch in the gut, I didn't want to say goodbye to Max :( The atmosphere and overall vibe works really well. The sound effects, music, and animations are really sweet. Your writing is very clever, I would've never expected this, it's super meta. I'm a big fan of horror, it would've been interesting to see how things would've panned out if you went down that route. By the end of the game, I wanted to continue feeding Max to see if any other dialogue would show up, I was very attached. I also wanted to feed Max different snacks, but macaroons will do! Fantastic job, I look forward to your next games!

Really excellent job on this one! I really love the song choices (I'm a big Louie Zong fan, and hello world is perfect for the end) and the sound in general. I also really love how expressive you made Max despite him having such a simple visual design.  The last thing I was expecting from this prompt was a narrative game, but I'm really glad you took this direction!

As far as critique goes, I think one might be to change the name so that the tone of the game isn't spoiled (if that's something you care about). I knew this was gonna be pretty meta just from the title alone (although I do really like the title, it's what made me click on it in the first place, so I'm kinda conflicted on this point). There's also some issues with food spawning when you press the button a bunch of times. I wouldn't really want to add a ton mechanically to the game, since I think its simplicity is part of its charm, and also it supports the point you're making. However, I think one little unexplored part of the weird world of virtual pets is the whole "or else" of raising a virtual pet. A lot of games will tell you like, "oh make sure you do this, or else this will happen", and the player doesn't want anything bad to happen to their pet, so they do whatever menial task is required. It'd be cool to make the player feel worried about Max's wellbeing right before he goes on a little rant about how absurd it is to worry about the health of a computer program.

I really didn't expect what would happen in this game, and I love the ending! This is a totally different but successful approach for this prompt and I think narrative wise it is quite complete. I like the suspension you created in the middle when Max start talks to you, and I like how the game stays after the all the narrative is over. The only suggestion I would  make is that maybe you can add more interactions with Max(like more activities or even some text options you choose to say to Max), so that the player may be more connected to Max, which can maybe strengthen your theme. Also maybe you can change the title and the cover page a little bit to make it more deceptive if you want? Overall I like this game a lot and I leave this game's web page on for a pretty long time ;) 

Philip!!! This was great! I loved it! What I particularly really like about it is the way you showed restraint with how heavy the horror aspect of this is. I was fully expecting shit to hit the fan at any moment but you always pulled it back! In terms of suggestions I'd say maybe adding a few more activities to really form a connection with Max would go a long way. 

Awesome work! You did an excellent job evoking empathy with relatively little text, and I definitely felt weird about feeding Max after he told me it was effectively useless (the irony is that, by framing him as a self-aware entity, you've created another, even stronger illusion in place of the one you've shattered by breaking the fourth wall. Maybe I was made to consider that because his introspection was completely motivated by treats that he claims not to require). It's all really well paced and I especially enjoyed all the little touches (Max takes three bites out of the cookies before finishing them, he does a little happy bounce when he's done, the screen transitions are slick, and the ability to advance text quickly is an appreciated feature), He's still smiling there as I'm writing this, awaiting the destruction of his own memories. Maybe I'll keep the window open for a little longer.

Alright, time for criticism. Most pressing is that, on multiple occasions, if I accidentally advanced past certain text boxes when I was expected to feed Max, the "food" icon would disappear and the game would soft lock (this may or may not have contributed to my impression of the meta-narrative). In regard to the story, I think it jumps a little too quickly from "horror" to commentary. We have this setup where Max is actually a forty year-old possibly demonic cat monster, and it all falls away in an instant. If the horror aspects were more tightly connected to the meta-narrative (let's say Max was attempting to scare off players so that he wouldn't have to get emotionally attached (maybe that was the point and I missed it)), I think it would've landed a little better. Lastly (and most nitpickish-ly), while the presentation is generally fantastic, the hunger bar stands out as a little out of place (I think it's got to do with the line weight). That's about all I've got to say! I'll definitely remember this one.

Great Job Philip! This game does a great job of subverting the genre of Virtual Pet games, and it was fun to go in three different directions (cute pet game, horror game, and meta game)

I don't have much direct criticism since I enjoyed it a lot, but I think if you were to further expand on the game, I'd hope to spend more time in the earlier two phases of the game. I think if you spent more time in cute pet land, it would help the horror reveal feel more impactful, and then the same from horror to meta.

Again, amazing job, it was super fun to play!

(READ AFTER PLAY) (SPOILER ALEART)

Hi, I think this is a fabulous interpretation of what a real pet game is.. a bunch of code cheering you up, through emotional means that only make sense subjectively to the player. I only have very small things that I can comment on your games... These are trivial, like how at the end you can generate food even before the monster eats them, and the previous food will be just gone, and also like how I anticipated some eastern eggs at the end. I think I tried to feed it more than 30 times, though I don't see anything come up. Maybe I should try to feed it more than 100 times? Idk... But you see where I'm going. The emotional connection you've created made me feel really difficult to quit this game. And for that reason I kept finding eastern eggs, though I couldn't, so that's a bit frustrating.