Rock Care

Overview

Rock Care is a virtual pet game inspired by Tamagotchi where players look after a moody, living rock in a dystopian future. Created in about a week the game features mechanics that allow players to feed, wash, entertain, and manage their rock’s needs while avoiding overstimulation. The game runs continuously based on system time, encouraging regular check-ins and long-term engagement.

Details

Built as a stat-based care simulation game, Rock Care tracks time between sessions and updates the rock’s state accordingly. Designed to explore caretaking as a habit, the game uses simple point-and-click controls and uses a hierarchical agent system to create expressive, reactive behavior. This prototype built in a about a week serves as a promising base for a potentially more ambitious project.

Features

  • Persistent simulation using system time

  • Hierarchical autonomous agent logic

  • Stat-based mood and behavior system

  • Save/load via browser using JSON

  • Clean, pixel art aesthetic.

Let me know

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Let me know -

What Went Right

This prototype was extremely easy to get up and running. Past components and tools I had made in different projects were easy to slot in and adapt to make the idea work. The agents are lightweight and computationally trivial which means that the system could easily expand. The stat management was also very easy to setup and modify which the game would hinge on, good news if the product evolved to be larger.

What Went Wrong

The project wasn’t perfect and had some small issues arise. Firstly I simply forgot to correctly anchor the debug UI, this made it mildly annoying to work with in different resolutions. Additionally, the stats themselves were intended to be interactive through small games, in the end I settled for being able to click on the resources. Lastly, the agent system needed modifications to support multiple agents, such as a central coordinator managing shared resources.