Hickory
This game was originally made in its entirety in 96 hours for the GMTK 2026 Game Jam to the theme "Count Down". All art, music, voice lines, and code were made during the jam and are entirely original.
As of July 31st, 2026, minor fixes have been included to improve the player experience. Please see this dev post for details!
If you're experiencing lag consider downloading the game!
- 3 stages and 1 boss fight
- Hand drawn storybook style graphics (100+ illustrated assets)
- 4 minigames to master
- Over 20 minutes of original music
Check out the album HERE
Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
the mouse ran down,
Hickory, dickory, dock.
The Clocktower, maintained by the clockwork dolls, has become infested with rats! Your fellow dolls are down for the count and it's up to you, Hickory, to repair the broken machinery, fend off the pests, and settle this once and for all. Be careful! The clock is what keeps you wound up and ticking. Time slows down for you as the clock counts down so don't let it fall into disrepair!
Daniel Graves - Lead Programmer and Developer
Jonathan Xu - Programmer and Designer
Emiliano A. - Art Director
Coco Wang - Artist and Illustrator
Yishan Liu - Artist and Illustrator
Wirovin - Environment Artist
Benjamin Wang - Composer and SFX
Desolo Zantas - Composer and SFX
47A - Vocal Talent
Jason Li - Producer
Additional Credits
Special thanks to the folks that helped playtest and provided advice, support, and feedback over the course of the Jam:
- Members of the University of Waterloo Game Development Club
- Audrey, Yulian, and Michael
- Jasmine and Matthew
- Josh
Known Bugs, Errors, and Missing Features
- [WebGL/Web Browser]: Game will only work on Chrome/Chromium-based browsers and Firefox.
- [Windows]: Quit button does not work. Alt + F4 or Task Manager must be used to close the game.
- [Windows]: Some displays that are more narrow than a 16:9 aspect ratio (i.e. 4:3) may not have content scaled appropriately.
Download
Development log
- Fan Art Appreciation Post10 days ago
- Post-Jam Updates10 days ago
Comments
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Loved everything about it <3
The Rat King seems to have come from Isaac, perhaps due to its vomiting attack.
The rats sometimes get stuck running into a wall or object, don't know if that's intentional
Such a Nice game!!, Great Concept
edit: Loved the ART, and Music
the new update is for game gameupd11.github.io/updater
Dude this is such a cute game, if there was a like full huge game with this same premise and more in depth story and characters and stuff id buy it in a heartbreat
Very well done, especially for working with a team under this time constraint!
cant move. dont know why using wasd just doesnt work but my keyboard does work and i am focused into the game. so idk
The atmosphere was fantastic!
The characters were also very charming!
I can't get over how beautiful and polished this game is! Kinda gives me Professor Layton vibes. And it ran smoothly even playing in-browser on a 14-year-old laptop. Incredible work!
Oh this is GORGEOUS- I don't even have words <3 The art the music the environment the EVERYTHING <3<3<3<3<3 As a rat lover it is strange to be on the other side, however even I know they're out of line here, I apologise for my brethren. I do get the appeal of living in the clocktower though, many things to chew and shiny gears to hoard <3 Anyway I genuinely love this!!
I love it, congrats
Wow, just wow. If you told me this was a Demo for a full steam release game, I would definitely believe you. I can't believe you guys made this in 4 days.
really loving the 100 rats option
This is so cool! Amazing work, you've all outdone yourselves!
Cool!
This is beautiful!!
Such a well made game! I can see why you would need 4 people working on the art haha, awesome! Music was top tier too
I'm amazed by the level of detailing in the game the audio, art, narrative, gameplay and everything that too within a short period of time. I believe you guys can make even more interactive and story rich game, so please continue to make more game. Amazing work to everyone in the Second Fiddle Studio team!! GG!!
i hate those rats
This could be someone's life project. Amazing game.
IMBA
I assume you mean it's imbalanced? Our post-jam hotfix adds different difficulty modes
No no, I meant that the game is insanely cool! in Russian, this is called in one word "imba".
This game feels like it was made to be a niche Nintendo DS gem that you'd try to recommend to everyone you know.
the game is very fun and I love the artwork, its very unique and charming. It is a bit hard, never can get very far. would you consider adding an easy mode in the future? No problem if not, I am a bit of a slowpoke with WASD controls and the rats are my sworn enemies, and I think it being hard plays into it thematicaly. fighting against entrophy is never going to be easy
Funnily enough, I just finished a patch that adds difficulty modes! It will be out shortly after the jam concludes. I'm so glad you enjoyed!
Can I ask what is the theme of GMTK this time?
The theme was Count Down, as is written at the top of our page!
Thanks!
this is so crazy good!! love the theme and the overall production quality is crazy!
I had a lotta fun with this!
Absolutely fun game! From the game & the art (graphics, music, the characters, writing for an arcade), it is simply an amazing game for a game jam. I’m speechless. Really a lot of care and love is on display. So good I played it twice (just to 1CC.)
Thank you for an amazing game.
I did a playthrough. It also has no commentary (for pure game audio enjoyers).
Again, amazing game and good luck on your future endeavors!This was really fun to watch and I love the thumbnail!! Thank you so much for playing and making a walkthrough of it :)
You’re welcome and thank you! Welp I wanted to draw something, since it’s such an adorable game.
Welp, also I did a follow-up playthrough on the post-jam and want to share my thoughts on the new update as well:
(also has no commentary. The follow-up starts at 29:20.)Overall, it is a much better experience and really enjoyed the new hard mode as well. I do love the balancing happened in this update, and the added lift, which is nice to coincide alongside the hard difficulty as well. And the 100 Rats mode.... welp certainly a meme material, and I funnily think its kind of almost as hard as hard mode, especially the rats in that mode as well don’t give time, and more of an obstacle at this point. Still, certainly an experience. One thing I wish is basically if you clear the highest difficulty, like hard mode, it just unlocks the rest of the ribbons (excluding 100 Rats), instead of you have to play the other difficulty modes to unlock them. Still, this update is miles better than before. As for final thing to say, I do love the extra lore of the other dolls. One thing would be nice, tho I think it might be extra work at this point, and unsure, is would be able to play the other characters aside from the main, upon completing the game.
Again, great update, and the quit button finally works.
The narrative and art were fire. Good job on being one of the top jammers here!
heh. dickory.
This was an amazing experience.I love the art style so much,it reminds me of the cartoons I used to watch growing up
insanely well polished and a genuinely fun game, amazing!
Woow. the artstyles is so good!!😭😭😭😭😭🤍🤍🤍🤍 The game is unique! i love how challenging it is, but it would be nice if we could choose our difficulty.
This was really cool!! Found the water pipe one particularly stressful, but that's the nature of the game, no? LOVE this, great job!!!
What people can do in 96h. I am truly impressed. Great stuff.
Literally amazed! The music, sound effects, art, and concept are all so comfy and enjoyable. Really good work!
Really pretty and sounds fantastic
Love the artstyle! The gameplay is really fun and enjoyable, the music suit very well with the enviroment. This would be awesome if it was a regular game. Really good job guys.
Very well executed nice game
This game is actually beautiful. The gameplay is fun, the art is stunning, and the OST is amazing. Very well made game.
Also, I love the fact that you guys added a behind the scenes section. (how did you even have time to add that lol)
Anyway, amazing game. Good job to everyone involved.