Morphology by Shess
"I keep seeing this little guy around my shelter. Does it expect food and protection from me? Haaah... it's been a long time since anyone ever expected anything from me at all".
Story: once again you are hunting and scavenging amidst the ruined world. Unexpectedly, a peculiar creature comes close to your base. It's weak and hungry and at its death's door already. Will you help it? Will you feed it, offer it cloth and armor as morphing fuel and play with your new "pet" so it won't get lonely?
You can raise it as a tough warrior. You can make it your closest aide. You can create the ultimate predator who won't be needing anything or anyone ever again - including its former caretaker.
The choice is yours. But first, let's just keep it alive.
- Raise a tiny morphling into a powerful independent being.
- Ration food, clothes and medicine to help it grow.
- Explore the ruined city in search of resources.
- Unlock all of the unique evolution forms.
- Play in browser!
Controls: mouse. Click on the morphling to interact with it, drag-n-drop items to balance its stats, scavenge for extra resources – but remember to keep your morph fed and healthy in the meantime.
You won't always understand what it wants or needs at the moment, but you'll get there eventually.
We value independent exploration and discovery in games. However, if you ever feel you need more help, please check the in-game tutorial. Some extra hints before you start:
- Mood meter is what matters most during evolution. Think of it as humanity.
- Fruits and Meat, while both satiating hunger, are also suited for mood control.
- Fabric and/or Armor are essential in that your evolution goes smoothly.
- Medicine helps when your pet is ill... but it has other uses, too.
- Toy and Interaction may seem like pointless options at first, but they have hidden effects depending on the route you're taking.
- Oh, and hit [Escape] to skip text during interludes to speed things up ;)
Code: Yanrishatum. Game design, art, story: Shess. Music: Theodote and Elvendan.
| Youtube | http://wb.yanrishatum.ru/games/morphology/ |
| Youtube | https://yanrishatum.itch.io/morphology |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/46/morphology |
Ratings
| Overall | 100th | 4.145⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 374th | 3.774⭐ | 84🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 145th | 3.982⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 78th | 4.307⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 37th | 4.645⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 125th | 4.099⭐ | 83🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 78th | 4.271⭐ | 85🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 66🗳️ | 20🗨️ |
To give some criticism:
I was never really sure what was happening, and why it was evolving in the different paths. Often it seemed like I only had one or two options to give it, and I didn't know what that lead to. Also, there were a lot of mechanics that seemed nice, but underdeveloped, and I think it would've been better to focus on one or two aspects (like feeding and evolving) instead of having all the things you guys did.
But surely an enjoyable game!
I have gotten to all 10 states, but to be honest, I still don't know how exactly - sometimes it was intuition, sometimes it was pure luck and trial and error. Is it what I give to it? Is it how I reacts and what I give it afterwards? What do the little speech bubbles mean? And why are they also next to the evolutions in the database? I know what items influence what stats, but what does that have to do with anything? Are the end stats important for how it evolves?
I have no idea, and I'd actually love to get a bit more insight into it, if a dev would like to answer here!
It would've been really nice if the game got less confusing during my playtime, as the scientist (?) discovers more and more about what the creature wants. But even if I often wasn't sure what to do, I enjoyed the experience and the mood that was created. I think this might've been the game with the most interesting atmosphere I played so far. Well done, folks!
I got the guardian at the end of the game. I'll see what others I can unlock later.
@tobiasw Actually, the evolution path is determined by a couple of flags, but most important of them is your morphling's "mood"/"humanity" meter. The more you fill it out during regular stages, the more human-like the morph becomes in attempts to mimic you. It will also begin to share more of its emotions with you and even get lonely without interaction :)
Also, here's a bonus gif for everyone who played our game so far.
Thanks a lot!
Edit: Small bug i encountered though, after I evolved the guardian the second time, I wasnt able to open the evo menu.
I hope, that you continue working on it, and some day it will be released!
My first morphling ended up as a guardian.
The pixel art really matches the characteristics of the morphling. Great game!
It's all shrouded in mystery, and the dialogues only make it better.
I really enjoyed playing this game, and discovering new transformations was really fun.
Great entry.
It was fun to try to figure out what was it that the little morphing needed and wanted. Scavenging was a nice addition, adding an extra layer of depth to the typical pet sim experience. Made it more interesting and unique.
I caught on the the scavenging part for additional resources after a while.
Would have loved for the morphling to face certain challenges or tasks for the colony, so I would have a reason to try and go in one direction over the other.
But all in all a lovely little game, nicely done!
This is really cool and filled with atmosphere. It's good that you added a cutscene skip key but it should have said it somewhere in game and not just in the manual.
Great job!
:thumbsup: **What I liked:**
✱ aesthetics is all good: colors, art style, fonts, sounds, animations, UI. Very balanced and harmonious.
✱ Warm in a cold world could be the game pillar: it works for every aspect of the game and bring a lot of consistency.
✱ Variety of content is pleasing, I unlocked the 10 evolutions and enjoyed the exploration
:muscle: **What imo could be improved:**
✱ The evolution are very expected and once you got down one line it's too easy to guess what's required to get the others. I'd have liked more surprises but on the other hand this "easy" feel of the game also gives it the warm and chill feeling which is very comportable. So more surpises with the same challenge would be perfect haha ^^
:sparkles: **Overall**
✱ I enjoyed the experience! The overall quality you got into this game is very impressive. Well done!
i was surprised by the fact that i had to drag the items onto the morphing, i was expecting to just click and have something happened, so i thought it was bugged at first, but i understood it quickly haha, at that point it was just... mhh, pleasing!
I have to say.... even the loading screen looks slick
