It's been a while since we've said anything about game development, but we've finally got something not just to show, but to play. We'll get into the details behind the quiet times at the end of this post.

Creats are virtual pets who live on your hard drive, and they love you. You can feed them, play with them, and generally take care of them, and if you train them just right, you might be able to transmute them into something amazing! Eventually. Right now, they are very simple pets whose needs are updated in real time, who need feeding at least once a day, and a little bit of attention sometimes. Future updates are planned, and we have a target "completion level" that we want to achieve at minimum, but if we see potential and people find the Creats interesting and compelling enough, we want to expand the experience to something more engaging. That's all a bit vague, so let's outline these two goalposts now.

Goalpost #1 - The Minimum

At minimum, we want the game to be a fully functional virtual pet with some customisation and progression options. We want you to be able to train your pet to improve and alter their stats, and to use those stats in minigames and tasks to earn some money. You'll then be able to spend that money in a store to buy simple things like nicer food and toys to better engage your pet. We also want to improve the presentation a lot with minor animations, sound effects, and much prettier menus.

Goalpost #2 - Best Case Scenario

If the game finds traction and enough people enjoy the Creats, we want to add an evolution system inspired by Digimon, based on reaching certain stat thresholds that determine what your Creat turns into. We also want to add more involved minigames, including competitions that your Creat can place in, and perhaps some more complex care tasks like taking your Creat for a walk - The target scope would be something akin to Nintendogs, but with less direct interaction and customisation. We'd also like to figure out a way to give the game Idle Game elements, but our ideas for that are too nebulous to really talk about.

If the game somehow takes off beyond our wildest dreams, we'd love to go even further and kickstart some physical devices or a Digimon World style RPG, but that's just wishcasting. Still, better to have a plan for success.

So, what about Synonauts?

Synonauts is currently on hold, solely for the sake of releasing Creats. At least, that's the reason now - The original problem was a combination of frustration, a lack of purpose, and a variety of personal events. I went through the process of getting diagnosed with ADHD, had several personal crises and resolutions, and got close enough to triggering burnout again that we dissociated for a fortnight straight. We have limited access to ADHD meds, but after doing some calculations, we've concluded that we should be able to get 3 productive days each week. Creats is partly a way to test and prove that idea, and a small project that might make a little money sooner than Synonauts could. Bear in mind that the primary reason I want to make money from either of these games is to fund my partner's ability to be safe and maybe come visit.

Once Creats reaches whichever "Final State" makes sense - either the bare minimum level at which we're comfortable putting a price tag on it, or the best case scenario if people really dig it - we'll move back to working on Synonauts, hopefully with more consistent and less taxing progress, using 3 days a week instead of trying to jam any amount of functional work into one Saturday. We still have a clear list of tasks that need to get done, so it won't be too hard to pick it back up and continue making clear progress.

Thanks for giving this a read! Please let me know what you think of Creats, or tell me if you're looking forward to see more of Synonauts. You can expect further Creats updates in the coming weeks.