Ladies and gentlemen of Ludum Dare, I give you:

Hubu Handler

While still generally opposed to the theme, I made the most of it, and ended up with THE most complete LD Entry I've ever made to date. You can actually win this.

The game is essentially a virtual pet with the goal of keeping him happy and eventually maximizing his happiness bar. Hubus are creatures that I've worked in to a few of my projects. They're sort of like a rabbit without any limbs except for a tail that they sort of use to manipulate things.

I won't divulge ALL the details here, the source is available after all, but the gist of it is... You have to keep the hubu's fatigue, hunger, and boredom satisfied to drive up it's happiness. Physical activity makes him more tired (jumping around), just being awake or getting stressed out makes him hungrier, and sitting around makes him bored. Conversely... sleeping reduces his fatigue, eating fruits makes him less hungry, and throwing things or petting him makes him less bored.

Everything is controlled via the mouse. The ball and the fruit can be dragged around and tossed. Dragging around without an object will display the hand. Slow up and down movement on top of the hubu will pet him and make him happy. Swift side-to-side movements will administer slaps, which will wake him up if he's over-sleeping, but also stresses him out momentarily.

I hope many of you have as much fun playing this as I had making it!