Entomologist Simulator
*Average Estimated Playtime: 2.5 Hours
Entomologist Simulator is a print-&-play solitaire game where you are an entomologist exploring a cave for new and interesting bugs, over the course of a week. Your main objective is to sketch as many high-value bugs as possible to accumulate Bug Points and get better funding for your research, with the eventual goal of cataloguing all bugs in the cave within a single expedition. If you wish to save some time on documenting bugs, a BugBase User Profile has been created for you, and can be accessed from this game page :)
This is a resource management simulator which ultimately requires luck and repetitive expeditions to the cave in addition to minmaxing skills. Can you catalogue all 52 bugs within a single week, someday? Only time will tell!
*Estimated Playtime For A Single Expedition is based off 3 separate playtests of a single day's gameplay, adjusted to account for the fact onboarding to a new game is more difficult than playing the game once familiar. Actual Playtime for a single expedition may be longer or shorter.
No cards? No dice? No problem! This game can be played entirely in the digital realm, using online decks of cards and virtual dice rollers. If you choose this option, make sure to use two separate d6 die slots to roll, not 2d6 in a single slot!
this was created for a Game Jam
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While not a guarantee, I may someday release a unique deck of cards for this game, to make identifying bugs and tallying up points much easier and faster.
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Development log
- free (no donations)Jun 19, 2022
- BugBase AddedMay 30, 2022
Comments
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Ok so 2 critiques i love the idea of the game want to okay it but.. aces are ones and the king and queens are mixed across the board. The king and queen thing can be dealt with easily but theres 4 1s and 4 aces so 2 descriptors would need to go if you use jokers, this is a great game idea and playable if you decide either ace or one but can also be built upon
I spent like 20 minutes across two different days, extremely confused. Only after reading the comments, did I realize almost the entire game is in a separate .PDF!
I went from baffled, to charmed.
Very cute idea and good effort, but you definitely should put a notice before starting the game explaining you need to print the .PDF first.
Very unique concept. Did you use Twine? It kind of reminds of a Twine game.
yeah! i got some player feedback that hinting through the bug tables was a substantial barrier to onloading, so, i threw a mini database together in Twine in like an hour. the time consuming part was really inputting every individual bug, the rest was pretty quick/simple.
Okay, Jam’s closed, so i can’t edit this description directly without it being removed from the listing… but this is now my clarifying post/update that the bug base at the top of this page is a SUPPLEMENT to the physical pdf game instructions! this game is played using a deck of cards and 2 dice!
I apologize for any confusion, this is my first ever game, so I didn’t realize it might confuse people to have the BugBase on top and then scroll all the way down for the directions. Thank you all for bearing with!
First i thought that i have to make a account and login to play the game. After I realized that I was dump and tried to play but i didn't succes (my english is not so good so difficult to understant). But a VERY VERY unique game.
That login page is a very common confusion from players, you are not dumb! Thank you for trying out the game, I’m glad you were able to try it out even without English as a first language. Glad you thought it was unique!! :D