Shotgun King developers Punkcake Délicieux have quietly rolled out another ticklish oddity in the shape of Build The Sun, a work-in-progress 2D god sim. In Build The Sun you preside over a tribe of alarming yet cute inkblot creatures, who sometimes remind me of Pikmin and sometimes, of that awful ‘roided-up panther monster from the opening stretch of Another World. Your objective is, indeed, to build the sun, because there isn’t one: the game’s pastoral pixelart world is engulfed in darkness.
It starts with a single, scurrying inkblot creature, hefting a solitary flame through the shadows. Who lit that first flame? Does this world have a Prometheus? There is no time to ponder, for a helpful arrow ushers you toward a ready-made pile of sticks.
Hold-click on the pile to ignite it (make sure you actually hold till the fire is ablaze, as the current version of the game will crash otherwise). Now, you have a small circle of light that attracts other inkblot creatures. The fire craves growth, as advertised by silhouetted icons for burnable resources when you mouse-over the blaze. These can be obtained by hold-clicking on things like trees and rocks, causing your industrious followers to automatically cluster and nibble the object down to its rudiments.
As the fire develops, spilling the light further and further, the game gets more complex. You don’t have to burn all the resources you gather; you can use them to construct things like huts and windmills. I’m not sure what these buildings do yet, after 15 minutes with the current build, but I imagine huts increase your population. Everything is left for you to figure out – there’s no guidance beyond the silhouetted icons. It appears there’s plenty to discover, or at least, that the process of feeding the conflagration is compulsive. Commenters on the Itch.io downloads page say they’ve been tending to their miniature suns for hours.
The current version of Build The Sun is one of many fruits of Ludum Dare’s 56th gamejam. It was made in 72 hours according to the theme “tiny critters”. “We’re definitely going to keep working on this one, so you may also consider this version as a very early demo,” the devs note. I wish them all the best with it. I have a thing for weird sun-themed games. If you share that fetish, may I also recommend Dyson Sphere Program? Alternatively, if you like the focus on expanding a campsite but wish it were more harrowing, check out The Tribe Must Survive.