Post

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

It's my very greatest pleasure to announce the project I've been working on the past year: Tascots! The Make-Your-Own Desktop Pet Game! Say hello to our little queen, Button the Mouse.

1.6K reposts4.3K likes

.escher//G.A.Y.
@escher.gay

SCREAMING AT THE TOP OF MY LUNGS RETURN OF THE SHIMEJI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Yes and yes! The DialogMaker allows you to write conversations for up to 4 Tascots, and the TascotMaker has a "custom" animation feature for adding animations of any kind! You can even write Tascot-specific dialog (using tags) that triggers their custom animations!

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

It's not something I've considered, but I could certainly add it. I suppose the easiest and most flexible way would be making two separate Tascots and then swapping the two out with a special command 🤔💭 I'll write it down, it may not be too difficult.

🎃🧡 TechnoGhost 🖤 👻
@technotoast.art

oh this is delightful! 🥺 I've been missing having little desktop mascots lately 💖 if i make a mascot with this program, would it be able to run around on its own or would I need to have the program open for it to exist? 👀

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

It can run around, chat with you, chat with other Tascots, eat, poop, sleep, be grabbed and thrown around! The TascotMaker is an editor inside the game, so you make them, save them, and then load them and it runs on top of your desktop as long as the app is open :)

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Yep! You pick the animation state you want to add your sprites to and upload 'em! You can also control how fast the animation should play, and even add a wav sound effect to the state (like footsteps). If the state is missing any sprites, the system will fall back to your Idle sprite.

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Public/free builds will be on itchio (with limited features), backer builds will be available on the backer discord, and the final full-featured release will eventually be on steam (but that'll be a long while, I have quite a bit planned!)

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Yep! It's an homage to shimejis and window sitters from the 2000s. They come with a lot of interactive tamagotchi-like features, but they can all be toggled on or off at your leisure!

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Not impossible! But it'll be a good long while before I attempt a mac build, a lot of rewriting will have to happen and I need to get my hands on a Mac to test it on. A pre-emptive thank you for your Patience 🙏💦

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Yep, we'll have a Steam workshop page for the release for people to share their work! Otherwise, both Tascots and Dialogs are bundled into single files that just need to be dropped in a specific folder. Extremely easy to share and load!

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

The TascotMaker is pretty detailed, there's dozens of options for customizing their behavior and you can add custom animation states in addition to the default ones!

softtint.bsky.social
@softtint.bsky.social

This all looks sick! Will the project be available for free to non-backers (with limited features, probably, but, still) or will it be a paid product and backers just get to test it, provide feedback and get it early? Because the functionality that's already in this is insane!

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Backers will get access to the latest builds, but free builds will release behind it when a build is "stable". I'll be maintaining a free branch that will get whatever optimizations the full build gets, but the full branch will work up to an eventual paid release (nothing too pricy!)

Zarla 💀🔥🍙🌼👑
@zarla.bsky.social

this is eXTREMELY RELEVANT TO MY INTERESTS 👀👀👀 is it going to work like ssp/shimeji where you have the base program and download tascots other people make to run in the program? will it be easy to distribute tascots to others? :O

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Yep! You keep the client open and load, make, and save Tascots via the editors. Sharing is as easy as dropping the singular .tascot file in the appropriate folder! No zips or folders full of pngs to juggle 👍👍

Zarla 💀🔥🍙🌼👑
@zarla.bsky.social

haha I still have so many folders and zip files in my shimeji collection, all the readmes i had to write! I'm PSYCHED to have a successor to shimeji with all this new stuff that won't freak out about java all the time! lol Can you add your own animations and stuff along with standard idles etc? :o

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Yep! There are about a dozen "standard" states (idle, walk, jump, grabbed, thrown, etc etc) and the option to add your own custom ones! All of it happens in the TascotMaker editor, and I've done my best to make it as user-friendly as possible :)

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Once it reaches 1.0 it'll be sold and reasonably priced on steam and itch. A completely free "LITE" version that doesn't have the editors will also be available!

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

It's not impossible, but will take some time as some scripts are windows-dependent. Never say never but it'll be a long while before I look into it 🙇

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

One sprite is just the minimum! You can animate and upload as many sprites as you'd like to animate their actions. Button herself has over two hundred sprites and counting :)

.url//GRAE
@grae.software

Not impossible, as Godot can compile to Linux. but certain C# scripts I use are currently OS-dependent and my experience with C# is minimal at best. I'd put it in the 'maybe, but not for a long while' column.