Unfortunately that's how Bitsy's controls work - I have no way to override it, it's baked into the game engine. It does frustrate me too but when one plays enough Bitsy games one learns and anticipates and compensates (most of the time). I do wish the developer would change this, though, in the engine.

I am happy to hear you found it meditative. It is a story of a strange change in life that leads to acceptance - and embracement - of a new life.

Yeah... can you tell where I was rushing in the last few minutes of the jam? LOL. I do admit to being bothered by the problems with the cave exits but I was literally in about the last hour (you'll note I submitted with 16 seconds to spare) and I didn't have time to code the checks, such as the ones that are there on the water and when you arrive on the island, to make sure you do everything important before you move on.

Same with the lack of guiding art elements that you mention - I hadn't figured it out (it was something I didn't think about until I was putting the scene together and then realised it was a problem I hadn't anticipated and didn't have a quick solution for) and then had to abandon doing that in order to finish up in time.

Thanks for noticing the sky reflection! I spent way too much time on that in combination with the palette stuff that I mentioned in another comment but I'm happy with it.

I'm really glad you enjoyed the game. Thank you for your kind feedback.

Thanks for your comments, although it's not meant as a retelling of Cast Away, I just used a volleyball and Wilson as a pop-culture reference/joke that those who had seen the movie would get. I guess I could have used "Spalding" or "Dunlop" instead but Wilson has the best ring to it. The point here is that the castaway accepts the fate of arriving on the island (we also (intentionally) don't know the back story of how the person ended up adrift) and over time makes the island home and becomes one of its guardians. (I also intended to use the volleyball net as a decorative/decor resource that the castaway incorporates over time in the cave.)

It always remains a disappointment to me when I can't add music, believe me!

This was amazing to watch - thank you! It is so validating to see people have the exact experience with the game that I was hoping they would (even with half of it missing!), especially since I'm working in a vacuum and just have to hold thumbs.

(By the way, I agree that having the same controls to advance dialogue and move/interact is a terrible design choice but unfortunately it's baked into Bitsy. Also "nonahexagonic mandiometer" is a joke - I haven't studied poetry since whatever we learnt in high school (which I've long forgotten) - all the yellow text is in the format of: first line 9 syllables (nona), second line 6 syllables (hexa), which I just made up (mandiometer). Another ambitious idea that used up dev time but I have no regrets!)

This was my second Bitsy game - my first, Heist At The Museum, was for a jam in October if you want to have a look as I had a bit more time to work on that one (though also still not enough) - so I don't know if I want to go back after the jam concludes to expand We, The Guardians Three with what's missing or just move on but it does seem that people want to see more of it.

Thanks again to both of you for playing and making the video.

You can create music in the recent versions of Bitsy but it's extremely buggy so for my previous game, which i mentioned in another comment, I initially tried and then gave up after I saw how the problems disrupted the gameplay. In older versions of Bitsy (or alternatively) you can add it with a hack that I believe works quite well but I just didn't remotely have the time to compose something. I would love to - I always want to add music to my games - but when it's a jam situation and I'm working solo it just ends up being impossible, sadly.

Thanks for saying such kind words about the game. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I really appreciate that you noticed the details and I'm glad to hear that my jokes are landing with at least some players!

Bitsy really is a wonderful tool (much like Twine). It allows people with no programming knowledge and no art skill to make a game, yet it's also powerful enough for people to hack away and do increasingly complicated things with art and code. (I'm getting there. This is my second Bitsy game - I made my first one (Heist At The Museum) last month for another jam but I had more time to work on that one (about a week(?) at a more leisurely pace).) I really recommend deep diving into peoples' games (and just playing around with the tool) because the ones I mentioned really are only a few of so many good games. Plus, the more you play, the more you see the clever things people have figured out to do that aren't the default and it really sparks one's imagination.

An example is the palette changes as you row to shore. It took way longer for me to do that than I was expecting (lesson learnt!) as I really struggled to find the right colour combinations for so many steps (also, it killed my brain adding so many of what the tool calls "exits" and "entrances"). I would usually also check the palettes and do my best to adjust for high contrast and/or colour blindness combos (it's not always possible to make adjustments but I try - especially with colour blindness) and I just didn't have time to do so, which is a personal disappointment.

Anyway, play a bunch of Bitsy games!

I appreciate your comments. Thank you. I'm very proud of my beach scene (the interior of the cave is, unfortunately, a little dubious!).

Oh, wow. I'm glad to have introduced you to something new! There are lots of games like this out there, though - a good place to start are the Bitsy and made with Bitsy tags. Some of my personal favourites (from a long list) include Five Great Places To Get A Nice Cup Of Tea When You Are Asleep, the Adamant Gambit series (which uses Bitsy and other, related engines), Roomba Quest, and On Tuesday, Trevor Found His Shovel.

Thank you for playing!

Me too! Haha! I needed an extra jam day.

I mentioned some of what I wanted to do in a previous comment but the other half of the island (which exists only in my head, unfortunately) has many more plants - banana trees, ginger, berry bushes, many more sticks, ... essentially lots more to forage and collect that would be useful long term. I wanted to use palm fronds for all sorts of decorative reasons, as well as for a cape or cloak for Coco (even with that simple idea I didn't have enough time to visualise the art beyond the stick/pole). The two mystery boxes I hadn't (still haven't) solved. They were placeholders for items I might realise I needed (and/or items that would make for good jokes) as I was writing narrative stuff for the missing middle section, where you slowly set up your home and become more comfortable on the island.

Thanks! I really wanted it to be about how the character uses the found objects that are available to turn the place into a home.

Thank you. The game was developed in the Bitsy game engine, which is a tiny game engine whose style is specifically low-res pixel art so that anyone can use it to make a game, even if they don't have art skills, and therefore specifically make a game that focusses on narrative.

(However, yes, I am also very much a fan of point-and-click adventure games.)

Thank you for playing and I'm glad to hear you got the right vibe from the game. One of the things I didn't have time to do was to show, with better art and lots of player discovery through dialogue, how the castaway uses the supplies, plus found objects, to turn the cave into a home over time with decorations and objects and art and such.

Thank you, also, for having a look at some of my other work. The Mischievous Thievery Of Jessica The Cat is my flagship game and I'm very proud of it (and some of the technical work I did in Twine to create it). What you see there is complete but I am working on adding more stories ("chapters") to the game because I love the world that I've built (a lot of it still in my head) and the characters.