Tic-Tac-Crow
A downloadable bird garden for Windows and macOS
Tic-Tac-Crow is also available on iOS! My first mobile game! <3
what is this?
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.
p.s. the nemesis system
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 forTic-Tac-Crow was"My Tic-Tac-Toe Nemesis is a Sulphur-Crested Cockatoo!"; it was made for theNemesis 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 hiddenlevel 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!)
who made this?
droqen
h heron
redacted
also, thanks to everyone in myplaytest discord & tomy 27 lovely patrons!
| Status | Released |
| Platforms | Windows,macOS |
| Rating | Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars (24 total ratings) |
| Author | droqen |
| Genre | Simulation |
| Tags | 2D,ai,ambience,birds,Board Game,nature,nemesis,Pixel Art,Singleplayer,tic-tac-toe |
Purchase
In order to download this bird garden you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $5 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Also available on
Development log
Comments
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Very interesting minigame. I especially liked the work done on the real-time ambience; it was very cool to see how the game independently kept track of birds' scores in real time, even when you weren't actively spectating at their tables. Some ideas:
- A few times, it didn't actually rate me as scoring a win, even though I won; play just continued on until the board filled up to a tie. This was very confusing early on.
- At first, I didn't understand that birds wanted rematches and just left after I finished the first round, since they seemed to take a bit too long for me (I'm impatient lol). So I think after only your first game ends, a brief text popup saying "X wants a rematch!" would be helpful.
- At first, I didn't understand that you have to walk down to the bottom to end the day. One brief popup saying "All the birds have gone… walk to the bottom to end the day" would be very helpful.
- If the birds' crows could vary just slightly (like by 5-10% in pitch) so we're not hearing the same, exact crow from two different birds, that would be very cool to hear.
- I wouldlove to have the ability to cheat by clicking quickly and having different birds go mad in a rage.
- The ambient sound from squawks at other tables is really cool. I would take this a step further and allow us to hear their distant table pecks, too.
- It graphically looks awkward when a non-sparrow AI pecks the upper corner where its sparrow opponent is. I wonder if maybe the sparrow could be brought back just a little.
- At the end of each day, you should be able to optionally click to view a chart that shows your total victories vs. defeats, including stats per bird and whether cheating was involved.
Thanks for including this in the Palestine bundle; I might have never known of its existence otherwise.
With some time and distance away from Tic-Tac-Crow, it was really lovely to read your thoughts. I agree with all of the feedback and suggestions you've proposed here. I'm not sure if or when I will return to this game to tidy up the design, but thanks for sharing this comment. And thanks for noticing the level of weird detail I put into the simulation ;) I really want those distant table pecks!
P.S. It's possible to cheat and have the birds rage, but you have to be very fast - a quick "swipe" with the mouse works. It was designed for touch, so the input there is touching two squares at the same time, which makes a bit more sense.
