DNAPet by Yirggzmb

Mix together DNA in a test tube. Insert it into an egg and help it incubate. Then raise the resulting creature!
Play online or download
Source code
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNEyP1XyBRw
Creatures have four main stats:
- Hunger
- Energy
- Cleanliness
- Exercise
The DNA you give your creature in the start affects it's rate of stat decay, as well as things like the food it can eat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TelFhWIZJ0
Game engine: Defold
Sound effect creation: Sfxr
Music creation: BeepBox
Art creation: Mostly Paint Net
Last Minute Changelog Incubation time shortened Indicators changed to be more clear
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/38/dnapet |
Ratings
| Overall | 675th | 2.786⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 658th | 2.571⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 433th | 3.036⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 717th | 2.429⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 706th | 2.25⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 449th | 2.556⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 134th | 3.464⭐ | 30🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 652th | 2.63⭐ | 29🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 35🗳️ | 25🗨️ |
A couple notes:
- Incubation takes too long. Clicking the meter back and forth gets boring.
- I wasn't always clear exactly what I should be doing with my creature. More visual feedback of its wants and needs would be helpful.
Nice work!
1) Agreed. It's on my list of potential balances after work if I have time.
2) Hmm. Good to know. Dunno if I'll have time before tje deadline, but I'll see.

Now seriously, idea is not bad, but I don't think it suits theme well. The game is not very user-friendly, my egg died 3 times and I thought it's because I made a bad combination, I understood what to do only by reading the comments, you should've add some note to incubation screen like "control the heat". I also though that game went laggy when I clicked at the box, so I restarted it once.
Making creatures is actually more enjoyable than taking care about them, it could've been more exiting if you had focused on this aspect of the game (e.g. possible to create 2-3 creatures at once and watch how they interact, restart button would've also help too)
P.S. 100% stone is best pet.
Really fun idea, good job.
PS: I agree with the guy on top of me. Now I want a stone at home, we would be best friends <3

Had great fun seeing the weird things but maybe a better feedback would have been better. At first I wasn't sure about what I was supposed to do. However the game was funny but could do better with more animations.
Super funny graphics, thanks for the small but surprisingly funny game
While overall it's a neat game idea, it does need some polishing.
@nilanjan - Yeah, more feedback is gonna be lumped in with better UI as I mentioned above. There's a lot I'd like to do to make it more player-friendly. And I wanted to do a ton more animations, but of course time. Next LD I'm hoping to take off work so I can put in a lot more polish.
@thecritterscove - Yep, definitely gonna work on making incubation way more clear, and possibly more fun, or at least shorten it again. The screen blacking on and off *may* have been the creature deciding it wanted a nap, as it's capable of randomly deciding to interact with the stuff in the room, but again I hope to make that way more clear.
@marccio-silva - I'm very glad you liked the music!
@vince @aurelien @ursigames @diknows - Thank you all! Definitely hoping to polish more, but I'm glad you've enjoyed what I was able to put together.