Rodent Rooms and latest updates

Published on Jun 28, 2026

Indie Game Round-up #

I think all of us could do well to share some of the things we like lately, in the hopes that others may like them too. Discovering things you like is hard, and as a creator, getting people to discover the things you make is even harder! I think sharing the things you like with other people makes the world a bit easier for both sides of this situation.

To this end, here are some recently released indie games and demos that I think you should check out:

And I’m setting you some homework: think of some independent art (be it games, music, or anything else) that you’ve enjoyed recently and tell anyone and everyone around you how much you liked it and that they should check it out too.

Rodent Rooms #

I released a short collect-a-thon game called Rodent Rooms on itch.io as part of a game jam I was in. It was also featured in Shovel Direct 2026 alongside the other wonderful games in the jam.

It is, of course, heavily inspired by so-called ‘rat maps’ from games such as Counter-Strike and Garry’s Mod, as well as a couple of the maps from the game Blockland.

For visual reference, here are some of these:

To start out with, I found as many of these maps as I could and went around soaking them in and taking lots of reference pictures to see how the geometry and texturing was typically done. I wanted to get it pretty close in terms of visual fidelity and detail, but using more modern rendering methods (i.e. PBR materials in Godot). I wanted the levels to feel like someone just opened up Hammer Editor and threw a bunch of textures from another game together with some custom ones for posters and devices scattered around the room. In terms of reference gathering, Garry’s Mod is a very useful tool for this, as there are a hell of a lot of maps on the workshop!

Here is the final reference sheet I ended up with:

Reference sheet I made for all of the rat maps — Look at all of these rooms...

I find it really interesting the way in which you can communicate abstract ideas about how you (the creator) remember a particular space using this ‘rats-eye’ view of it. I also think it’s pretty cool and fun to be able to get into the walls/floor/ceilings of a room to get unique vantage points. You could climb to high shelves or even up into a light fixture and get a nice overlook of the huge room you’re in.

I ended up making three different rooms for Rodent Rooms, each a room from a different point in my life. There are a lot of memories and meanings to the various things I’ve put all around the room, but to you it’s all just stuff! To me, it tells a story about how I’ve lived and grown up. The first room starts at around age 16 or 17, through to 18 and 19, then to the current day (which is age 29).

I think the end result, whilst largely lacking in specific meaning to anyone that plays it, is able to inform a kind of greater feeling of nostalgia and dialogue with the past. Which is exactly what I was aiming for! I’m very pleased with how it has turned out.

Shovel Direct 2026 #

Following on from that, Rodent Rooms was also featured in Shovel Direct 2026 alongside a bunch of other wonderful games made by some very talented developers. It was an absolute privilege to be featured once again, and I also got to help out with the website again!

The 2025 Shovel Direct last year was super fun too, which Apparatus was featured in.

Highly recommend you check out the games from both of them if you want to play a bunch of fun and free games.

Downtime #

On a more personal note, I have been long struggling with intense shoulder pain from a decade-old sporting injury. It made it very difficult to sit at a desk for long periods and put in the hours needed to make games (and that’s on top of my real world job to support myself/fund game development). Thankfully, I had surgery on June 1st to fix it, and I’m now (and have been) recovering. They shaved off almost a centimetre of my collarbone which has been just as painful as it sounds, I can assure you.

I’m easing myself back into desk work at the time of writing this, but I would like to give special shout-outs to Marathon Season 2 and Mina the Hollower, both of which I have been putting a lot of hours into during my recovery. I ended up 100%ing Mina the Hollower, it’s a really really great game. If you like Zelda you will love it, and if you like finding secrets you will love it too! The way some of the stuff is hidden is very clever and I’m in awe of it really. The modifier system for adjusting its difficulty (up or down) is also very well put together. A real pleasure to play. And Marathon is just a really solid FPS—I really suck at the PvP part of it but the world is amazing and the gunplay is some of the best I’ve ever played.

The Charity Shop #

Work continues on The Charity Shop’s Steam release. The last post here said I was aiming for a March 2026 release—clearly that didn’t happen. You can thank the aforementioned shoulder and surgery for that!

I’m going to hold back on rubbing a crystal ball and predicting a release again, but what I will say is that it’s really shaping up, and I hope it will be ready in a matter of months. Compared to the itch.io release it will have three extra levels, a lot of new writing, and a more streamlined experience. It will also support gamepads/Steam Deck/cloud save and will have achievements.

Here are some work-in-progress pictures of some of the new stuff:

I hope to have more concrete things to announce for The Charity Shop soon.

A concrete thing I do know, however, is that I’m definitely sticking to a lower fidelity and detail aesthetic for future projects, as making anything for this game is very time consuming!

Wrapping up #

That about does it for this wadge of hypertext. Depending on how quickly I am able to progress with the release of The Charity Shop, I may have an extra surprise this year for those of you still dwelling on those magenta eyes.

See ya!

Figglewatts

Game Developer