Bleak
A cute and laidback nightly farm simulator, where you grow strange and glorious flowers for a charming cast of characters. At night, use your action points to plant your garden, clear debris, and explore the forest. As your blood runs out, return to your crypt to dream the day away until sundown.
Bleak can be played in nightly segments, or at your own pace. You can choose whether game actions reset at midnight each real-time day, or just after sleeping in-game.
Content warnings
Insects, Blood, and Death
Controls:
- Move: Arrows/WASD/Mouse/Gamepad sticks/D-Pad
- Interact: Space/Enter/Z/X/Click and hold/Gamepad face buttons
Made by Sean, Michael, and IAN for #AGBIC 2022.
Inspired by the Famicase Bleak: Survive and Thrive by Caspian Whistler.
Bleak is a farming sim and survival game in which you play as a vampire existing in solitude after those silly humans wiped themselves out. Manage your time and blood supply as you slowly cultivate the earth to once again become a place full of life.
Development log
- Post-launch bugfixesDec 06, 2022
Comments
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I want to ask if the choice of the description of the seeds which laura gave m will affect what kind of seed would i earn and if the choice in the dream which happened when i finished growing the seeds laura gave me would affect the plot
hey can anyone tell me which seed is supposed to sing so i can grow it?
I love this game so much! It is so sweet and I love all the characters and the artstyle. I haven't left yet because I don't want to leave anyone. :[ It makes me really sad that you have to go to sleep and leave the world. I genuinely don't have the words to express how much I positively love this game. I only wish I could say goodbye to everyone.
Also, Lucian my beloved <3 Will always remember you.
The end actually made me cry D: The song got to me.
i'm struggling to find the seeds to fill the last basket! any hints?
https://itch.io/post/7028439
thank you so much, this helped me realize i was accidentally neglecting a character haha.
help! every time i try to run it- its blank
it looks like you're using the itch desktop app, i'll look into why it's broken there but in the meantime you should be able to play in your browser (or lmk if it's also not working in your regular browser)
found the cause of this itch app bug! should be fixed in the latest version (v1.0.14)
beautiful. one might complain about the pacing towards the end, but honestly? i think it's really nice to kind of show how everything is slowly disappearing and that it's time to end.
i wish you could say goodbye to everyone :< i woke up saying it wasn't time yet, but didn't get any special dialogue when talking to anyone (especially surprising from lucian, since we talked about sleeping already)
great game, 10/10 this is art
i feel so silly but idk where to dump my trash after bertie throws his tantrum
just talk to him or sleep and dump it again
Thank youu, I thought since he was so upset I had to find somewhere else lol. Great game.
weirdly, i want to live in this world
IT'S SO SAD BECAUSE WE CAN'T PLAY THE GAME FOREVER SO EVEN IF WE CHOOSE TO WAKE UP WE ONLY PROLONG THE INEVITABLE
Does anyone know how to get the gelatisse for the goat girl? It seems that's the one thing I need to advance in the game.
update: i figured it out and finished this awesome game
i absolutely love this game but you walk extremely slow and i get a bit impatient. i would definitely play it more if you could walk faster. overall, a great game, though. i would recommend for patient people.
no bugs bad bugs
i like but i hate BUGS
Game isn't loading lol
can you provide more info? what browser are you using + any error messages on screen or in the browser console?
I am using opera gx. I click on "play game", and the loading bar reaches 100%, after which nothing happens
unfortunately opera gx is lacking support for some basic file types (e.g. mp3s), i'd recommend using chrome or firefox for playing web games
ok thx
What an absolutely stunning game: I must say, heading into it, I expected a cliche and niche horror game all about surviving a garden full of monsters and managing a draining blood supply. However, what I found instead was a thriving story with lovely characters: I enjoyed every chance I had to spend time with them, and though I have my critiques over certain areas, it was a very, very amazing game to play through.
A few problems I did notice was that the game dragged on a bit too much near the end: the characters repeated dialog, and I was left just going to sleep over and over again waiting for a certain character to appear again. The idea of having characters come back every few days or so is a great idea, but it was executed rather poorly in this regard near the end. The beginning was full of handling the bugs, the characters and your garden while managing your time... so not being able to interact with every character was something that kept you there, wanting to see more. But near the end, you've gotten every flower, there's no more bugs, there's just repeating days waiting for a certain character to return to advance the story. A little more meat in-between the days would be nice... but thats assuming it's not a story game, which it is. Adding more reason to grow the same plants would be nice, too! There was less gardening at the end and just waiting.
Back to my compliments over the game: the writing was phenomenal, learning the plants after picking them was great, and the ending, though bittersweet, was portrayed rather beautifully. Nothing lasts forever, and the time you spent in the game was wonderful: it ended much better than most games you see, like a little box closing for the last time. You can remember what was inside, but you'll only be able to imagine what happened to the items or characters. Maybe they continued to take care of your garden, maybe they moved on. (A small tidbit, if I might add, is that I absolutely love Lucian!)
To wrap up this rather long review, I just want to say that I'm saddened I haven't played this beautiful game sooner, but I'm very glad I was able to experience the absolute treat that I found it to be. If you play the game, you'll not be able to put it down. 10/10 game, 5 out of 5 stars. I wish you luck on later projects, and I will surely check them out if you make any more!
i've been carrying around something white the whole game (but only when i'm outside) and i can't use the hedges to clear my way because it says my hands are full. i don't even remember where this thing came from. where do i put it???
oh wait i think that's my seed pouch but why can i still not use other items like the clippers? i've tried emptying all seeds in hand into the plots and still it says my hands are full.
and bertie keeps repeating the same dialogue
it was the trash from cleaning up a pile of rubbish at the start of the game. i read somewhere in the comments that sometimes bertie's dialogue glitches over and over again - which mine did. i restarted the game and dumped the trash in the hole on the first day before bertie ever showed up. i don't thiiiiink i'll have the same problem again but we'll see!
yep same problem. i think it's because my computer is ancient. i still had fun playing this game!
aw :( ending is so bittersweet! 11/10 game though super cute :D
I'm stuck. Seems like the last thing I have is to repair the bridge. I saw lumber laying along the river above the bridge but it seems like it's just part of the scenery. How do you repair the bridge?
one of the characters who pops up occasionally can help with this
Please tell me it's not Cecil. I think I ran him off.
it's not Cecil
The ending was so bittersweet but I love all the characters that I met along the way(except for Camus, screw him). I wish we could've said goodbye to them, but alas, it wasn't meant to be
that guys name is just the one you chose backwards.
Ik, but Sumac is the default name so I assume most people know what I'm talking about
Love the game but can anyone tell me how to get out of the dream which i turn into a bat and meet the mosquito look-a-like guy? I have been stucked in that level for daysðŸ˜ðŸ˜ðŸ˜ p/s: plssss someone answer quickly because i don't wanna drop the game just because of that damn level🥺
a couple hints (in rot13):
Pretty sure it's a maze if you haven't figured that out. Beyond that just wander around and you'll find it eventually.
It's an invisible maze. I don't remember the exact way to get all the way up top to where Camus is, but I think you have to go slightly left and then up, then you can just go left and right while you constantly press the up button
How many days dose it take flowers to grow because its been at least 5 in day games for me
Edit: I'm really bad at puzzle games so if I'm supposed to be watering them or something that's probably the reason
the plants will not grow if you do not water them
After you plant, hit "inspect" again and it'll give you the option to feed. Water it for two more days and it'll be ready unless it turns black. Then you start over. Anyhow 2 or 3 days.
OMG I'M SO OBLIVIOUS
Can I start by saying that I absolutely adore this game - what you have made here is a work of art and I have thoroughly enjoyed playing it. I might just be missing something very obvious, but I can't find the final material that I need to plant in order to (I assume) finish the game. There are no obvious places to find it, and no new conversations to trigger, so I am at a loss as to what to do next.
If you're stuck, I'd recommend double checking that characters don't have anything new to say on repeated conversations in other branches.
If you're really stuck, here's a full spoiler answer to where you might have missed things (in rot13):
lbh trg bar frrq sebz vafcrpgvat gur ybg nsgre pyrnevat gur pbapergr, nabgure sebz gur jryy cnfg gur oevqtr, naq svanyyl ynhen tvirf lbh bar va gur pbairefngvba jurer fur yrnirf naq lbh ner cebzcgrq gb jnvg ercrngrqyl
You can download it via the itch app and try to run it that way (you may need to run a local server for this), but it's a browser based game, so there's no dedicated desktop build. Are you having any particular issue with the browser version?
Ah, that's an itch CSS problem; I think if you click the fullscreen button in the bottom right it will resize down to fit, or you can right-click the game and do "open frame in new tab/window".
This is gorgeous and the character writing is very interesting! Super intrigued to play more, little by little.
Lovely art style! I love all of the attention and care that was put into all aspects of the game
where and how does one find Lucian!?! Love the game btw, I need more! I was watching the credits and saw lucian in there but never saw him in game :/
Thanks for playing! Turns out there was a minor sequence break possible that would make Lucian never show up; we've fixed it now, so if you continue your save or restart you should be able to meet him.
YEAH BABY, THAT'S WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT, THIS IS WHAT WE'VE BEEN WAITING FOR, WOOOOOO!!!
Wonderful game! I've found a bug however - if I talk to Bertie from Day 3 onwards, I get the following message in place of his dialogue:
"This shows up when a passage failed to parse, or doesn't even exist. Try checking the link for spelling errors or the console logs for more detail on the error."
When I try advancing the dialogue, the same message appears two more times.
I'm believe this may be blocking me from advancing through the game as I'm not sure where else to dump trash?
Hey there, thanks for the bug report! I've pushed an update that should fix the issue, but if you try again and still get the error message, could you check the console for more error details? It should include a message like "Failed to parse passage titled "<broken passage title>", going to "DEFAULT" instead.", and that would help me debug further.
The bugs been fixed, is Bertie supposed to be repeating the same dialogue every day?
He should repeat once you have the option to give a plant, but his other conversations end with him leaving the area, preventing you from repeating. Is that not happening in your game?
(note that it would be expected for him to repeat at least once as a result of the bugfix; if you're playing on gardener mode, the next time he shows up it should progress)
I'm playing on gamer mode, he's repeating the dialogue from the first time I met him every day
Hmm, it sounds like the savestate's not recovering from the previous bug. I've pushed another update that should hopefully fix it (again, expect the first convo to loop once but if it loops twice, it's still broken).
If this update hasn't fixed it, you'll probably need to try modifying the save directly from the devtools, or clear your save. To do the former, you would:
If none of this fixes the issue and you'd still like to help debug, feel free to DM/email me with the full contents of your `scene.strand.savestate` and I can try to see what I've missed.