For the longest time I’ve wanted to make a game to share on this server but lacked the coding expertise. I finally bit the bullet and spent some hours learning HTML, JS and CSS to put together something I’m decently happy with to share with you all.
Cowmotchi is a simple tomogachi style game where you take care of a hucow called a Cowmotchi. Help her gain weight and produce more milk and you’ll unlock reward images.
The game is probably super unbalanced but I found the half hour it takes to play though the game was fun enough.
I’d really appreciate if you could point out any bugs or share suggestions if you have ideas for the game.
I’m an artist and I’m trying to polish up my skills so real drawings will likely be coming to replace the AI generated ones. I just wanted to give you all something to look at instead of a text ui with some progress bars while that’s in the works.
People will probably get mad about the AI images but I think it’s a fun little system. Only issue I have is with the balance between milking, feeding and energy. I can only milk for 4 before she runs out of energy, but I need 6 to feed her, so I can only feed her every day and a half even when her capacity is 10+
It’s a neat game overall, I think. The chaos/minor annoyance of the buttons and them only really there to fill a bar seems a bit much? Like. Cleaning, I guess?
Also the fact it is huge and I can’t see everything is a strike.
And the upgrades, while good, require a LOT to get, especially at the start.
… this comment suddenly sounds more negative, but there is honestly a good idea here.
I will agree, it does start off hard, but at least you have a buffer. Hunger really doesn’t matter all that much so it can go down quite a bit thanks to the health stat. That one is filled via the clean function however.
Yeah, to be honest the whole system is kinda jank and needs a lot of refining. I kind of intended for you to run out of energy too fast hoping it would incentivize folks to purchase the milking machine and nipple training. This kind of comment is exactly what I wanted when I chucked it up here cause I knew the game could be annoying, I just couldn’t figure out why after playing it myself too many times.
Yeah, the game is a bit of a menu/button hell. I might have gotten too sucked into keeping the player busy to realize how much of an annoyance spamming the bars to keep your Cowmotchi alive and progress. I might try to slim things down- the happiness stat doesn’t do too much for gameplay and the clean button was just an easy way for me to stop the her from dying if I wasn’t paying attention for too long. Unless you think there’s some value in that I might just cut it from the game to focus on the main gameplay loop.
The achievement/progress pop up modal thing is pretty shit. I wanted to do something celebratory to indicate when you progress but you’re definitely right that it’s a bit much. I was on the fence about removing it completely before posting due to how much it bugged me personally so this about seals the deal. I’ll probably try scaling it down first and maybe offsetting it to the corner above the achievements or something. Let me know if you’ve got an idea that you think would be better.
Regarding the upgrades, I also agree that they’re pretty pricey. I play tested it a ton by myself but kinda just went all in on Nipple Training, Fattening Food and Larger Portions since as she reaches weight milestones she gains fullness faster. I’ll spend some time and try to iron out a good starting price for everything and work on the scaling.
Hopefully this doesn’t come off weird. I really appreciate your feedback, I know the game is pretty jank but as long as I’ve got steam left in the tank I’ll keep on working until it’s something that folks can all enjoy.
From what I’ve read it looks like you anticipated some of the feedback you’ve received, which is a good sign. You’ve done the most important thing which is make the game and have it work, so bravo!
One thing I’d mention is that the game plays less like a tomogachi and more like a clicker game because of the sheer speed of some of the stats. I’d recommend taking some time not to think about balance but to think about what kind of game this is. Then think of how to adjust the overall feel to meet what you’re intending.
Found some bugs:
-after level 19 there is no character image shown
-after getting the max milk stress reduction upgrade, milking increases energy, even over the capacity of 100% causing visual bugs as the bar extends past where it was intended
-you cant get some achievements: “breasts touching floor” and “upgrade food portions 50x” either didnt trigger or in the latter case are impossible as it says max level is 5
Balancing issues:
-there is not reason to feed pretty much at all, auto feeder does a well enough job once you get there, feeding manually just slows down progression as a money waster
-does happyness even do anything? Didnt feel like it
-cleaning is just better than “play” and has no real reason to be used.
Other isse:
-buying the top upgrade blocks the view of that button, so if you saved up a bunch and wanna buy the upgrade multiple times you always have to wait for the yellow banner to disappear
Thanks to everyone for the constructive comments and bug reports.
I tried my best to address most of the issues in this next update, here’s a list of changes.
Scaled down the pop ups and removed the most annoying ones.
Milk button now disables when empty instead of showing annoying pop up.
Fixed bug where weight would increase even if Cowmotchi is unfed.
Removed Happiness since it didn’t really do anything.
Rebalanced Health - Restore more health from having a food in belly and lose health from not milking when full or at 0 energy.
Removed Clean button - This would have made the health rebalance basically pointless.
Fixed the bug with no image being shown at level 19. (Level cap was intended to be 18 (AI struggles with anything larger than max size so when I get around to it, hand drawn sprites could let me increase the level cap.))
Fixed milk machine bug so that it cannot give energy from milking when at max level.
Revised feeding system
Food cost now scales directly with how much you feed your Cowmotchi.
Feed button always fills 1/4 of the hunger meter.
Removed larger portions since it didn’t make much sense after revising how feeding works.
As such, supersize everything achievement was removed
Revised capacity system
Now capacity will increase exponentially instead of at a fixed rate.
Fixed Chounyuu achievement so that its now unlockable.
Please continue to let me know if you find any issues. Suggestions are also appreciated (especially achievements)!
Was a bit over-eager pushing that one and didn’t do enough bug testing on my end. I fixed the fattening foods bug so the release that’s up there now should be more playable.
I wasn’t able to replicate the part where it became impossible to regain health though. Health loss is triggered in 3 ways.
Having 0 energy will cause your Cowmotchi to lose health
Leaving your Cowmotchi’s milk fullness meter at max capacity will make her lose health
When your Cowmotchi’s hunger meter is full she will lose heath
If you have 0 energy and the Cowmotchi is at max fullness the health will continue to go down even if she is fed, but I can’t think of a way that leveling up would cause this behavior.
I really appreciate your feedback, and I’m glad you took the time to try my game in all its jank.
only things I could recc are maybe auto-clickers like similar games in the genre and change the energy system to something else? Or make manual milking better but the auto-click is free? I dont know, energy is an annoying mechanic in the wrong way
I’ll have a look and see if I can fix it. Although I might end up removing it all together. Going after the achievement is kind of annoying and I don’t want to force folks to deal with too much frustration just to unlock an achievement.
I really appreciate the feedback, there’s only so much testing I can do on my own and you all are making my life so much easier by pointing these things out.
I’m glad you enjoyed the game! Auto-clickers are definitely on the list of things I plan to add. The energy system is pretty annoying so in the next major update I’ll see if I can overhaul it. I’m not sure if I’ll remove it completely since so many other systems rely on it but I’d definitely like to make it less hostile to interact with. Your idea regarding manual vs auto milking is really good. I’ll probably run with that when I go to implement the auto clickers.
