Take Care Of Shadow Milk

A virtual pet game built in Scratch, which is part of its charm rather than a caveat. There are the usual meters — hunger, cleanliness, mood — and the usual actions to fill them, and the reason to play it is the character's reactions rather than any mechanical depth. Those reactions are the content. The pet responds differently depending on which meter you have let slip, and the writing is the point of the whole exercise — which makes neglect an option worth exploring rather than a failure state, and a lot of players will spend as much time finding out what happens when they do nothing as they will keeping the meters full. There is no real loss condition and nothing to optimise. Sessions are a few minutes, it saves within a browser, and it plays entirely with taps. The presentation is simple and the interface is obvious without instruction, which matters for a game aimed partly at children. It runs on anything including very old devices. A small fan-made toy rather than a game, and upfront about that — which is the right way to arrive at it.