Wonderfully terrifying. It dawned on me halfway through that my infant son was in a bouncer next to me as I played this game.

I need some coffee.

lmao a lovely experience. Humorous graphics.

Horrifying and hilarious. Awesome visual style. Babies are terrifying.

This is one of the most disturbing things I have experienced as of late. Good work!

Couple of spots are pretty frustrating, but overall I liked the mood and a... unique... take on the theme, with pretty perfectly matching music for the mood.

I loved this. Others may not. But I did. I like graphics especially. I can't tell if they are photographs or renders? Either way, they look great and they suit the dark baby-laden mood of the game perfectly.

Whoa, this was unexpected. Kinda creepy, but at the same time fascinating and engaging. Reaching the coffee with so many babies on top is impossible mission in the end. Particularly loved the art style and the parallax scroll. Everything fits together really well. Congrats on this.

This is surreal and creepy and horrifying and absurd, and I love it. You guys are really taking it to the next level.

Wow, every time I feel like you folks have hit a new high for creepiness, you go ahead and top it in the next LD :p

I've seen a couple takes on theme which were simulation game approaches to "kids/pets are nice but too many is stressful", but this was certainly a more interesting interpretation, haha.

The foreground babies were definitely the best part.

Babies are good fire shield, thanks for the tip!

I thought I was going to lose when the baby amount started to increase to unmanageable levels, thankfully there was flamethrowers next to me to save the day :)

Overally I liked this one, good job!

Loved it, 5* !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POg_y3nLpDY

Seriously though, the unsettling music and the jarring (Dare I say Dadaist?) art style mesh really well to make this a solid 5 in mood for me.

-accidentally pushed anon button, and cannot delete?-

At first I was: Purple letters on Green? This person has no taste!
Then I was doused in a snippet-book horror show - that somehow fit perfectly together in its absurdity.

Well done!

Cool concept. Toys give a nice/creepy touch. Controls are a bit off, sometimes got unresponsive. Just glad to play such a bizarre concept :D

I really really loved the aesthetics of this game. From the creepy art style and animation down to the audio. It fits the theme very well and is presented in a way that I haven't seen done from another participant. Mechanically very simple but presentation wise very very nice.

Wow... interesting game...

I'm curios how did you come up with this idea :)

Cheers. (Morco - CyberPunks team)

I played on Firefox 57 using A/D/Ctrl/Space and stopped at the door with the sign "Fertility Clinic" after 5 tries.

In no particular order:

- I'll make nightmares tonight.
- Music and sounds fit the global aesthetic, a stronger feedback on babies burning in flames would be nice.
- Graphics are exceptionals, I just wished there were something else as a coffee icon.
- I'm gonna be a bit brutal on this point: horizontal movement controls were bad. Is this a bug? Every KeyDown event of D the character goes back left for 1 second and then go right. This was hugely frustrating during the jumping sequences.
- I was happy to find the path on the roofs as a small alternative.

Globally I finished frustrated but I really enjoyed the aesthetics and the humor.

**EDIT**

I made few more tests to see if the movement problem was a bug and it's a weird one.
I restarted my computer, cleared the cache of Windows, Firefox and UnityWebGL and the bug was still here. Then I tried using Chrome 62 and the bug disappeared.

The weird part is that I have played 2 other games in WebGL so far and "Leader's guidance" doesn't have this bug but "Beer O' Clock" has a similar problem where Up & Left are constantly activated on Firefox but not on Chrome.

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/leaders-guidance

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/beer-o-clock

Wow, this is certainly a very unique game!
I don't have kids and, after playing this, I think you've successfully talked me out of it! :D
Great graphics and style - reminds me of "Little Big Planet"!
At first, I as a little confused, coz I thought I needed to take the babies back somewhere. But quickly became clear that I just need to get through with as few of the "little darlings" attached as possible.
I thought the fire was a bold step! Good to know I can use that approach, should I ever find myself smothered in babies! :D
Good luck!

@cyberpunks we're a bunch of people in our 30s and 40s, all child free and most or all not particularly interested in creating more humans. For some reason the ideas kept getting back to babies. "Baby Aspic" (not really sure what that game would be). A game where you start out with dreams and visions about what to accomplish in life and as you get more babies you resign to wishing for just five minutes of peace, a full night's sleep. A platformer where you play as Santa but instead of collecting coins or presents you just collect babies and put them in your sack.

We had other ideas that did not involve babies, but there you have it more or less. How we ended up with this idea.

@happysloth I wonder what is the issue with the controller there. But in general I do agree that both the character controller and the camera controller are far from optimal. I'm the one guilty and in the end I settled for "at least this kind of works" and a "next time we need to make a simpler game so we can spend more time on content." That we've been saying for 14 LD now. You also correctly spotted the coffee icon and the loading sprite behind it that is just one of the default assets in unity. We were very close to fixing that but on Monday I was kind of giving up on it all... it's a sad thing that thing that happens when you know something should be fixed, and it is not hard to fix it but for some reason you just let it slip.

As for the bug. One thing that springs to mind is that it may relate to release version of Unity used. And it may also relate to remapping of Input.axis made...

@sean-s-leblanc if I get my will through, each LD will only become more [fill in suitable word].

@liquidream always keep the fire burning, just in case :fire: :baby: :fire: :tada:

@randomhuman we're happy to serve.

@kevin-mooney most everything in the game is from photos. But some, in particular the animated bits are photos that then have been manipulated rather than stop motion capturing the walk/crawl cycles.

@simonhutchinson you should have picked them up holding them while playing to get a super immersive experience!

And everyone else, thanks for all the great comments.

Wowwww! [SPOILER ALERT] I spent so much time trying to get the one baby offa me I had to drink a second cup of coffee whilst it was attached to my face! Then I said fekit and got all the babies! Little parasites...

Hahahaha that was the perfect combination of creepy and hilarious.

My wife tells me that having babies isn't so bad, but then...

- she only had one and said, "let some other fool get pregnant - we'll adopt next time"
- that's not what she said when she was pregnant
- I don't remember hundreds of babies being attached to her

This is a disturbingly accurate portrayal of life as a parent. Very surreal, very disturbing and quite insightful. It should be part of the National Curriculum so that people know what they're getting in to!

Horrifying and hilarious. Loved it. Great concept. I died the first two times I played, but I'm still about to go back and play it again.

This game is going to give me nightmares... And I guess that is a good thing. Atmosphere is definitely a strong suit of this game, and I liked the interpretation of the theme! I would like a bit more content but overall it is a cool idea for a game.

I guess I can never sing this song again without thinking about natural and healthy heat shields...
Creepy and funny at the same time.
Everyone who has ever taken care of a baby for more than one night will be able to identify with the main character.

So I was commenting on some game's graphics on the games listing page, when my girlfriend told me "At least it's better than this awful Babies! Babies! Babies! thumbnail !"

Am I glad she did.

Damn. The was... something else. But that's not in any way a bad thing. The opposite in fact. The only problems I had were that at one time one of the giant baby heads blocked my view at an essential moment and at one time my jumping height didn't recover after burning babies. But apart from those minor caveats the game is really amazing. All the elements work just right together to create a completely disturbing and off-kilter experience.

Love the graphics and sound

Found it a bit odd that the jump faces toward the wall regardless of my movement direction.

This game made me feel uncomfortable, why does that woman live near so many maternity wards?! Overall, I liked the aesthetic you were going for, but there needed to be more ways to remove the babies compared to how many of them you run into at once. Nice job!

Took 5 or 6 tries but I disabled the ray. What a refreshingly antisocial scenario.
The unusual graphical style was exciting as well. If it was all up to me, this would be in the top 10.

Congratulations on a wonderful collection of babies! I really appreciated the use of plastic toys for the art style helped create a strong overall theme. If you'd had more time/access to actual babies, I'd suggest using those city/road playmats to fill the background/provide building sprites, but not being able to get your hands on one of those over the course of a LD is understandable.

Also, if I've learned anything from Death Stranding, it's that babies are the future of videogames. Good work getting ahead of the curve!

Congratulations on making the thing that will possibly haunt my dreams on the following weeks.

There's been a lot of entries that have to do with "the more you gather, the slower you go" entries, but this one from setting alone stands out the most. It's just so disturbingly good, and the use of graphics was a marvel.

There's not much else to say about this one that hasn't been said before. If anything, my only complaint would be that at times, I'd jump a hit a ceiling, because I thought it was part of the background. Careful with the value selection of objects there.

Anyhow, once again, great job. I'll never see babies the same way again. [In behalf of my team](twitter.com/whalesandgames), we're looking forward to seeing your future projects. Cheers! :whale:

Another quirky, unique entry for Ludum Dare. Also enjoy seeing what you end up making and once again I haven't been disappointed. Those babies were a nightmare the way they grabbed on and slowed you down until you were able to get them off. I really liked the baby head in the foreground also that added more depth and was kind of spooky looking.

played it alone and with all lights off was the best experience. Keep making games like that. Nice job

Facehugger babies.......I like it! Surprisingly I haven't seen too any other baby/kid games this LD, and it never popped up in our brainstorm sesh either, so kudos on a unique theme, in addition to a unique game in general. You kept surprising me with the different ways you could throw babies at me (maternity ward, stock), so great ideas all around.

Sidenote: Read your About and some comments about your team, I can totally relate to some of your experiences. I also field a large team of whoever random people are around that weekend, and it's quite the challenge to reel in features and finally focus on making a simple, polished game. This hasn't happened yet but one day the dream will be real! Sigh, there's an idea we should've done. "The more feature creep the worse it gets"...

Having so many babies attached to you can be super stressful! After dragging the 10th baby, I was matched with an uncomfortable mood. The "doll-ish" artstyle makes it horrifying. A terrific entry!

Check our entry out and let us know what you think!

https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/calligratree

Please, no. Good creepy doll situation going on here and I can appreciate the sentiment. Not sure how to shake the critters off but well played, team. Well played.

Woah, this game has a creepy atmosphere! My intuition was to *collect* all the babies, but I quickly realized that this was not what I was supposed to do :P I appreciate the attention you put into the camera control! Interesting visual style, which I've never seen before. Nice job!

The game seemed rather hard. I noticed that if you waste some time early in the game, it becomes impossible to progress after a certain point because there's a massive WALL OF BABIES BABIES BABIES and you can't really jump from atop babies! :D

Hahahaha that was really weird and fun XD I love the unique fun/design/message that came out of this. The gameplay is minimalist but strong enougth to get stuck some times and understand new mechanics. Everything has some joke inside, that was a very fun and unique entry. Great job ! Cheers !

Standing in fire is the only way I figured out to get rid of all the babies. Kind of brutal but it fits with the overall athmosphere of the game.

The visuals was unique and unlike anything I have seen in a Ludum Dare game. It was a nice addition to the humoristic/creepy experience.

Controls were pretty good but a little hard when there were so many babies around heh. Great job!

Hahaha great idea, babies/children was also my first thought when hearing the topic, but had no good game mechanic to go with that ^^

I like sound and music! ;-)

Omg, this is super creepy.
First play it was fun, but every next play it's become more and more creepy.

Maybe I am too impressionable, but I need a brief break after this.

Yeah, but general idea is funny) I hope you had as much fun as we making our game. We also have a bit cruel conception, but not so much I think XD

Ok, that was just fuck-ed up as it needs ! Good game, pretty simple but just by the graphism, audio and overall mood, it became really remarquable ! I didn't succeed to pass the fire (I try 5 times, the fire is the longest I can make) but it was unexceptedly enjoyable to play and to try to figure how to avoid babies at the end haha !

Very interesting game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 40 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BQct2dB93U