DEMO PLAY: Babette

She is ADORABLE!

I did NOT expect this.  A cute-looking, pixel-based hit of nostalgia when you're feeling stressed really hits the spot.  It turned up on my Twitter feed (never X) as I follow a lot of indie game devs and indie game shares and I'd really been missing my old knock-off Tamagotchi.  Perfect timing.

Babette is adorable.  Virtual pet or no, she is a cute little cat you feed, pet and play with.  These actions are presented as mini-games and, as a responsible pet owner, it's your job to keep Babette happy, fed and loved. 

You go around your little digital house looking for Babette to make sure she's alright, whether it's feeding her in the living room, playing with toys at the sealed portal to Hell, or petting her in the kitchen, it's all important to her wellbeing.  And therefore, yours.

Erm...Babette?

There's plenty of virtual pet games out there and most are basically copies of the original physical ones from the early 2000's.  Babette stands out by using the façade of one of these games to make what it truly is  much more effective.

Babette is a high-stress timed horror game.

Oops.

It is VERY EASY to die in Babette.  She is flighty and, the more displeased she gets, the weirder, creepier and more distracting the environment outside of her little digital home gets, punishing you for bad ownership.  It's got a hint of the only good part of Five Night's At Freddy's - the increasing tension.  The difference is that Babette doesn't rely on jumpscares.  It's a pixel art style game that has, at least in the demo, a solid understanding of what creeping terror is.

This appears to be a nostalgia-fuelled horror game done right.