There’s many a creature collector on the market, but how many have you care for actual bugs rather than fictional monsters? Bugaboo Pocket by Elytra Games does just that. Just like the Chao Gardens of old, Bugaboo Pocket will see you hatch bugs and provide for them with food, pets, comfy surroundings, and minigames. As part of Tiny Teams, I have been given a code by Yogscast Games to offer my thoughts on Bugaboo Pocket.

This demo gives the introduction to why you’re raising bugs, whereby a company the main character was working for brought about an ecological disaster. Not content with how things were left, they return to the site with the intention of raising insects to help bring life back to the ecosystem. With this demo, you have just an isopod to raise. The basics of how to raise that insect are left for you to learn, but it’s easy enough.

The hub screen shows the cabin where the main character lives raising those insects. Inside it is a computer, terrarium, garden, and a pinning board. And a washroom, but the demo doesn’t allow access to that. The door is also interactable, letting you go outside. This is where the main progression for the story is seen, where raising insects in a certain way will bring the next part of the ecosystem to life. Where you’re mostly going to be spending time is on the terrarium screen.

This terrarium screen has slots for three bugs, though as said, the demo only allows for an isopod. The rubber ducky isopod, to be exact. Starting from an egg, it will hatch in its own time. Going into the info screen will display its name (which you can change), type of insect, its growth stage, and its habitat. This info screen also has three other tabs. The mood tab, tarot tab, and log tab.

Each insect has various things to be aware of with its mood. For the demo, only its happiness and health are active, but below those are nine other mood bars. In the tarot tab, a fortune will be drawn daily, which looks as though it affects the insect in some way. Though the demo displays this information, with The Fool tarot active, I’m pretty sure the system is mostly inactive owing to needing those other mood bars active. As for the log tab, it just gives thoughts based on how you’re interacting with the insect and its environment.

Speaking of interacting with the environment, the terrarium can be decorated. Using frass, the currency of the game, the left and right walls, the floor, and the bed can be changed. Each insect will have their favourites, so finding the right combination will help to keep them happy. There’s also food that can be given to the insects. A single branch will be free, with a small stump costing silver frass and a large stump costing gold frass.

How do you get frass, though? Winning at the minigames. At each stage of the insect’s life, a new minigame will be unlocked. Each minigame has three stages. For the isopod, it has a pachinko-like game unlocked when a baby, a tile drop game unlocked when a juvenile, and a tunnel escape game unlocked when an adult. As long as the insect is willing to play, they can be accessed. Too many in a short space of time will lock you off from them until the insect is ready to play again.

The insect will occasionally poop out frass for you to collect, but the other way of earning it is through goals. Accessed from the computer, these goals can be both simple and hard. Whether hatching an egg, picking up frass, or decorating the terrarium with an insect’s favourite decorations. Those completed will appear in gold. This computer screen also gives information about the decorations you’ve purchased, the insects that you’ve raised, and a log of the story elements that have been happening.

When the insect has reached old age and dies, there are two things you can do with it. The garden is used to bury insects. The pinning board is used to display them as part of a collection. In the full game, I expect that pinning board will have some goals associated with it. The game will then take you outside, displaying your current progression and whether any has been made. Since the demo is set up so that failing the first progression mission is a difficult thing to do, a small bit of life will be brought back to the ecosystem.

From that point on, there is no more progression to be made. You are stuck in an eternal loop of raising rubber ducky isopods, finishing off whatever goals the demo provides are left, and from a collector’s viewpoint, earning enough frass to get all the decorations in the demo. No matter whether you continue to do this or not, the demo has provided a great look at how the full game will be to play. For me, I’m certainly invested. I’m ready to see how this story progresses and what other insects will be available to raise.

The Tiny Teams Festival is running until 10/August-2023. Thanks to Yogscast Games, I have been given codes for several games that are featured during the festival this year. Across this month, I will be either reviewing or sharing experiences of these games. Despite being given codes, the thoughts I offer are purely my own and not influenced by the generosity of Yogscast Games.

Images Taken From:
Bugaboo Pocket | PC