A Companion in Your Pocket
VOLT is a little electric robot you adopt from his egg. You feed him, shower him, tuck him in at night, take him to the arcade and explore Volt City together. He lives on real-world time : he sleeps at night, changes with the seasons and opens his advent calendar in December. A new-generation tamagotchi in a neon cyberpunk universe.
I wanted to find again what I loved about the tamagotchis of my childhood : a little being you feel responsible for and want to come back to. And I wanted to build it end to end, to understand from the inside what I analyse every day in UX research : what makes people come back, what frustrates them, what makes them care.
A personal project carried solo end to end : game design, art direction, development with Godot 4.6, interface, balancing and Play Store publishing. Every screen, every system and every minigame went through my hands, often several times before finding its shape.
My best testers are in my family, and their feedback shaped the game : buttons enlarged for small fingers, illustrated rules before every minigame, a Minesweeper redesigned without long-press, a multiplayer chat protected by a filter against insults and dangerous questions. Their bug reports are worth gold.
The house : VOLT resting in front of his TV, 7 rooms to visit
Volt City : Neon Boulevard, Pixel Avenue and 8 places to explore
Daily quests, exploration missions and the season pass
The wardrobe : colors, hats, themes and animated backgrounds7 gauges to watch (hunger, hygiene, happiness, energy, social, temperature, health), diseases to cure and care combos to chain.
8 evolution forms to unlock, a 5-level prestige, a skill tree and an encyclopedia to complete.
A full city : 8 places to visit, a 7-room house, a park, a shop, a lab and catacombs full of surprises.
25+ minigames : Tetris, Pac-Man, 2048, Minesweeper, Zuma, Crossy Road, Helix Jump, fishing, rhythm, racing and more.
An online lobby with avatars and chat, a multiplayer Draw & Guess, weekly tournaments and their leaderboards.
Colors, hats, eyes, accessories, shoes, full outfits, 24 animated backgrounds and 8 interface themes.
Coins and gems, rotating shop, crafting, daily and weekly quests, 3 story chapters, a 30-tier season pass.
Day / night cycle, seasons, an advent calendar in December, morning bonus, vacation mode : the game lives on real-world time.
From First Sketch to the Play Store
It all started with a little antenna guy doodled one evening. For players to want to care for him, VOLT had to be expressive : he smiles when all is well, sulks when ignored, shivers when cold, dances when pampered. I drew him poses, emotions and outfits (an armor set, a detective costume) until he had a real personality. He is the one carrying the whole game.
Then he needed a place to live. First a house : a living room with a cinema screen, a kitchen, a bedroom, a rooftop, a park, and even a toilet because kids find that hilarious. Then a whole city, Volt City, with its shop, clinic, lab and catacombs. And to make this world feel alive, I synced it to the real one : it gets dark in the game when it gets dark outside, seasons change, an advent calendar opens in December.
The arcade grew game after game, often on my testers' requests : what about a Tetris? A Pac-Man? Today there are more than 25, from great classics revisited with my neon touch to games invented for VOLT like Orbital Strike or Neural Breach. Every game opens with an illustrated rules card, ramps up gently and earns coins to spoil your companion. A weekly tournament puts one game in the spotlight.
Multiplayer was born from a simple wish : being able to play with my brother. An online lobby where avatars meet and chat, and a Draw & Guess where one player draws while the others guess the word. But an open chat in a kids' game deserves real protection : I dove into online child safety research to build a filter that blocks insults, personal questions and harmful messages before they are even sent.
Shipping the game was a project of its own : preparing the Play Store page, choosing the screenshots, having every version tested on the family's phones and tablets, fixing, starting again. The day VOLT appeared on Google Play remains one of my proudest maker moments. And it is not over : the game regularly receives new minigames, new outfits and new ideas.
The arcade room : every game has its color, stars and reward
Orbital Strike : protect VOLT at the center of the screen
The weekly tournament and its leaderboard