About SKITTER

Skitter (working title) is an independent video game currently in development. This is the progress blog where interested players can read about how the game is coming along in development and comment with suggestions.

Skitter is a monster-raising game that focuses on the care you give your pet monsters, as well as time management. Most of the actions you make in the game will consume time, and the game's clock and calendar will move forward as you feed and train your monsters, tend to your farmland, and travel around town. Because each monster has a set lifespan, you must use your time wisely to raise your monster before it passes away. In addition, how you take care of your monster will affect its interests, skills, health, and even its total lifespan.

I wanted to create a monster game that focuses on the time you share with your monster, and in which your success is based on how well you take personal care of each creature. I also wanted to separate the player from worrying about stats and numbers by removing a lot of visible numbers from the game, encouraging the player to focus on the monster and not the numbers. It's important to get a "feel" for your monster by seeing how it progresses and using clues, rather than to just watch numbers and try to make them go up.

I also wanted to make a game where every monster is a unique individual. When you play a game like Pokémon, you see something like Alakazam, and you think "This monster will be good at special attacks, bad at physical attacks, and have frail defenses." No matter how much effort you put into training it a special way, you're not going to create a bulky physical sweeper with that monster. I don't like this because your favorite monster can end up useless because its base stats are terrible. In Skitter, I am to create a game where the species of monster is not nearly as important as the individual monster's abilities. Each monster is born with talents and interests, which can also be influenced during its childhood. It grows and changes form based on how it is raised. So every monster has potential to be good at any given area. How good they get is based on your personal skill as a caregiver.

I also wanted to create a game where monsters do not exist for the sake of fighting. Depending on your monster's talents and interests and how you raise it, you may find yourself entering your fast monster in a race, having your sturdy monster help with the farm work, or encouraging your bright monster onto the stage of a pageant. You may try to keep your well-rounded monster happy and healthy in hopes of making it the perfect breeding parent. Of course, there will still be wrestling/sparring matches for those of you who like to battle monsters, but they will not be as complex and RPG-like as something like Pokémon.

Skitter pulls inspiration from many games, including Monster Rancher, Tamagotchi, Harvest Moon, and even Akitoshi Kawazu's SaGa series. I hope to create a unique play experience that incorporates fun aspects of monster/pet games and role-playing games that fans of those series can enjoy.