Don't Kill Your Darlings by scalliondelight

[raw]
made by scalliondelight for Ludum Dare 50 (JAM)

The theme of LD50 is Delay The Inevitable

In Don't Kill Your Darlings, you play as Dr. W, the woodland wizard veterinarian, looking to help geriatric critters live comfortably in their twilight years. Are you able to help these cutie-pies feel better and live comfortably before they glide gracefully toward the great PetsMart in the sky? titlescreen_darlings.gif

``` Changelog (hotfix 1:15am ET 4/5/22):

  • Made it so the ending can fire
  • Turned on Bullet's animated base
  • Fixed various game ruining bugs
  • Fixed an input issue related to html5 build ```

Ratings

Overall 779th 3.468⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Fun 1131th 2.935⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 352th 3.629⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Theme 941th 3.435⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 104th 4.452⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Audio 196th 3.903⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Humor 305th 3.667⭐ 32🧑‍⚖️
Mood 351th 3.806⭐ 33🧑‍⚖️
Given 25🗳️ 42🗨️

Feedback

Khill
05. Apr 2022 · 03:38 UTC
I'm not really sure what I needed to do, but i really like the visuals and audio. There didn't seem to be punishment for dragging the wrong material onto the animal, so I just trial and error-ed it while relaxing to some cozy music and checking out all the cool visual.
Very unique, nice job!
LDJam user 279610
05. Apr 2022 · 03:38 UTC
Loved the graphics! Absolutely wonderful!
beats
05. Apr 2022 · 03:44 UTC
The audio and graphics are really polished, the atmosphere is great, I wished there was more feedback when you selected a material, also more guidance through the dialogue to inform that choice.
davision
05. Apr 2022 · 20:05 UTC
Nice, I loved helping all these weird little critters! Loved their design, the gameplay was a bit confusing to me, took me some time to get that I need to drag drawers to creature and what that then does was quite a mystery but maybe that was also the point. I had no idea what I was doing and I had no idea what those beings were but thats ok. The heavy animation on the texts was pretty irritating though.
PolymathLD
05. Apr 2022 · 20:24 UTC
Wonderfully absurd and funny. Took me a minute to figure out I was supposed to click and drag but once I did I was off to the races. Also really enjoyed the weird and charmingly disgusting art.
chrissimas
05. Apr 2022 · 20:57 UTC
One of the best graphics I've seen so far!! Very charming game and theme, loved the sounds! But I had a bug on my first gameplay, I cliced and dragged everywhere and nothing happened, but it was back to normal once I restart the itchio link! Very cute, poor Doritos :(
Copito
05. Apr 2022 · 20:58 UTC
Amazingly atmospheric, but I struggled to work out the strategy on how the different materials related to the different ill animals and got stuck dragging randomly. The art was super cool and music was solid as well
Escarpoulpe
05. Apr 2022 · 22:08 UTC
Big love on the visuals and the mood, i'm so sorry for this animals :cccc but at the start i don't understand what i'm supposed to do
joemid
05. Apr 2022 · 22:41 UTC
![image0(9).jpeg](///raw/684/z/4ce54.jpg)

Wow! Not what I was expecting at all! Very cool character designs and illustrations. The gameplay is slick and feels good. I didn't know if what I was doing would effect the world, and then the snail dog came back with a metal tail! I couldn't advance from there, but I see where you are going- I think. The hang in there poster is a nice touch. This has some great potential if you decide to go further. Thanks for the game!
theLudovyc
05. Apr 2022 · 23:15 UTC
Good Idea ! But I dislike falling typo. Effect is awesome, but it's harder to read
LeoLFerraz
05. Apr 2022 · 23:18 UTC
Loved EVERYTHING about this entry. And it fits with the theme in such a creative, refreshing way: pet owners being
ignorant or disrespectful towards their companion's needs means their demise is inevitable. Visiting the vet is just a way to delay it if you're not willing to educate yourself and change your priorities.
Jason200101
05. Apr 2022 · 23:21 UTC
incredible art, and beautiful storyline. This game just has it all, there's no feedback I could give for improvement. Good job!
Gul
05. Apr 2022 · 23:45 UTC
Loved the illustrations and music, the whole game just has a really laid back vibe. The first time through I was able to "cure" the animal (I guess? It disappeared) but subsequent times I couldn't quite figure out what to do and clicking the drawers opened them but didn't do anything.

Either way great style, animations, and overall feel. Seems like it could really be great with more time!
CobGoblin
06. Apr 2022 · 00:09 UTC
@beats true, more feedback would add a lot! smoother dialogue to guide the player as well.

@davision thanks! I think we definitely could've done more to guide players through the experience, but I'm glad you enjoyed your time with it!

@polymathld will be referring to myself exclusively as "weird and charmingly disgusting" from now on, thank you. Glad you had fun!

@chrissimas thank u so much! thanks for letting us know about the bug, we ran into a couple similar as well. I loved your game too!

@copito thank you! I think clearer info surrounding the different materials would definitely add a lot.

@escarpoulpe thanks for playing! we'll definitely take this into account when we put more work into it.

@joemid thanks so much for the feedback! glad you enjoyed it despite the bugs, hopefully we get to show a more polished version in the future.

@theludovyc thank u for playing!

@leolferraz thanks for the high praise! :D We really wanted to make a game about the more difficult side of caring for a pet, I'm glad that showed through

@jason200101 thank you!!!

@gul thanks for spending some time with it! appreciate the feedback, we'd definitely like to polish stuff like the drawers and how players are guided through it further.
Sodoj
06. Apr 2022 · 00:19 UTC
I can't put in words how much I love the style of this game. It threw me way back into my own childhood in which I was surrounded by wacky stuff like nickelodeon and many weird comics I used to read as a kid.

Love the creatures, love the idea, keep it up, I want to see more stuff from you guys, you made a darn fine game!
Viho
06. Apr 2022 · 11:55 UTC
It was very fun :D very nice creatures and illustrations. Very cool things happen in the game. By the way it would be great if I know what's going on and what I have to at first.
tigerj
06. Apr 2022 · 14:15 UTC
This game is beautiful and fun despite a small amount of continuity hiccups. Loved streaming this and I was very much attached to the pets. Thanks for sharing it with the stream! https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1447965941?t=00h55m50s
Yeti Kid
06. Apr 2022 · 19:49 UTC
Really great idea and some great writing! A lot of humor in there and definitely felt sorry for these pets at times!
Kyrio
07. Apr 2022 · 21:38 UTC
For some time I didn't really know what I was supposed to do... I saw empty drawers with a material name, and an animal I didn't really see how to heal with metal or wood. Eventually as they came back, I understood the idea, so that's probably on me! Still, I suppose you could make it clearer that you need to drag and drop to progress. And the text is a bit too long to display, maybe you could tone down the animation? Overall, this is a very original submission, and the dialogue is very funny - but I feel bad for those poor things!
riley9
07. Apr 2022 · 21:49 UTC
very interesting take on the theme! it kinda was obvious what would happen with them at the end of the game, still it was sad to see :')