itch.io

Sorry about the upcoming wall of text.

First thing I'd like to mention, is that your game is more "small" than it is "short". Even though the premise is simple and runs are only 1 minute long, it does take some effort to find a good deal of the endings. I spent about 40 minutes on your game and didn't find all the endings (which is good because I was having fun the whole time; the unknown endings gave me a reason to keep playing).

It's small in the sense that the scope isn't very extreme, you just click buttons for one minute and then read and look at cool art, but not short because finding those endings can take some time comparatively.

When I played your game, I ended up keeping track of the endings I had previously gotten on a white board. I just wrote the letter, the name, and a quick summary of what I did to achieve it. I did this because it was too hard to juggle my previous endings around in my head because eventually I had gotten probably like 15 or so of them. It was hard to remember what I did in the past and was hard to think of new ways to proceed.

That being said, I do believe me taking notes is probably a lot more than most people will do. I imagine a lot of people who play the game will just try to cram everything in their head and then eventually stop because it's too hard to continue. This is bad because finding the endings in your game was really fun! You should do everything you can to encourage players to keep searching for endings. Your game isn't challenging at all, so I think players not knowing how to continue will serve more to frustrate them rather than make them feel more rewarded by challenge. Homegrown Pet is essentially the opposite of a 'rage' game like "Getting Over It With Bennet Foddy" or "Cuphead". This is just my own observation about your game though, so I'm not sure if other people will find other aspects more enjoyable or play the game differently than I did. These frustrations the player may have is arguably their own doing, but in game design any frustration for any reason is bad. I do think they're really really light frustrations, maybe frustration is too strong of a word, but they're not good nonetheless.

So essentially what I had in mind was a way to give everyone notes because they probably won't do it on their own. More specifically, a non-intrusive guideline to keep the player organized. Like instead of having a how to play screen at the beginning you could have a home page with a "Play/Start New Run", "How to Play", and  "Previous Endings" buttons for example. When you click the "Previous Endings" button, it shows you 21 boxes with their letters next to them. The ones the player has never gotten would be gray with a ? icon, the ones they have would have some other icon. Like maybe a picture of a book for the bookworm humanoid ending, or maybe even just a zoomed in picture of their face for example.

Keep in mind all of what I just said is extremely hypothetical, and mostly just what I would personally add. Everything is completely at your discretion.

I suggest this for two main reasons. The first is obviously to lessen frustrations of the players, but secondly is to give the player a tangible reward. If the player can physically see an unknown ending and then see it filled in later, they will experience a sense of reward for their time and effort spent searching for that ending. It's also just really satisfying to complete a "To-Do List", and it gives the player a reason to become a completionist.

You could make a written guide for the players, but I personally think that would be overkill. At least if not done correctly. I'm assuming you mean like a complete answer sheet to all the endings. Part of the fun comes from finding the endings yourself, and if you have a resource that tells you how to do that it would just become pointless.

With these kinds of games it's inevitable that some people will look for, and find, the answers somewhere online. But you giving answers is different. People going online to find answers is 'cheating', and they know that. But when you give it to them it's 'part of the game'. This would encourage people to find the endings through an answer sheet, which makes the game less fun, and then blame you for making the game unfun.

Kind of like if someone uses wall hacks in Super Metroid they're the only person to blame for making the game unfun, but if the developers gave you a gun that one shot everything it would be the developers fault.

With all that being said, I do think a guide like this implemented correctly could be completely fine and even helpful. As long as you are very adamant about the guide you made being external from the game itself, it should be fine. You could post a guide online or something, just probably not accessible within the game.

Lastly, keep in mind that I'm just one person. These are all my personal observations and I play and enjoy games in my own unique way. I tried my best to think of what's best for your average Joe, but I could easily have missed some important insights that others wouldn't have. I hope you listen to what I have to say, but I also strongly suggest you get other insight from more people too.

Your game was really fun and I had a blast playing it! Keep up the good work.