Creature Ranch

Inspiration

What it does

How we built it

Challenges we ran into

Accomplishments that we're proud of

What we learned

What's next for Creature Ranch

Target players

Creature Ranch is for mobile players who like creature-collector games and cozy ranch or management games. It plays in portrait, with one thumb. A session can be two minutes or twenty. The game respects short sessions. The world moves only while you play, so you never lose progress when you close the tab.

Concept

You are stranded in a dark forest with an injured mentor and an overgrown ranch. You capture wild creatures, called monsties, and put them to work. Monsties are infrastructure. They cut timber, carry stone, water crops, cook, and craft. A ranch without monsties is a field of weeds.

The journey is the spine, and the ranch is the engine. Most of your time is out in the world, on foot, walking the routes between towns. The ranch runs while you are away. It is the only place that makes the gear you need to go further. It is also the warp hub that sends you home and back out again.

The loop is tight. You walk out and hit a wall: a gym, a boss, or a route that your current gear cannot beat. You warp back, upgrade a station, and craft the next tier of weapons, armor, and capture balls. Then you beat the wall, earn a traversal move, and the road opens.

Every fight is a set of choices. You and two monsties act each round against up to five foes. You parry an attack with a tap. Each species fights by its own rules.

Built With

• godot