הכנו בסאנבירד משחק מחאה, גזור תכיפה
משחק גזירת הכיפות הראשון בישראל (ובתקווה גם האחרון)

רוצים ישר לשחק?
זה הקישור למשחק

כשהמצב קשה היצירתיות פועלת, בסאנבירד הוצאנו משחק מחאתי סטירי על המקרה של גזירת הכיפה. זו הפעם השניה שהמצב בארץ מביא אותנו ליצור, הפעם הקודמת היתה עם ביבי רץ לפני שלוש שנים, אפשר לקרוא על זה בפוסט שכתבתי אז

אם אתם פעם ראשונה שומעים על סאנבירד, אפשר לראות את כל המשחקים שלנו תחת סטודיו סאנבירד באיצ’

ואם ספציפית יש לכם חשק לעוד פאזלים, אני ממליץ לנסות את פריקל

Cuddlr – warm little experience

Have you ever been scrolling through a dating app and thought it felt like a game? That’s the observation that started our journey. Cuddlr was made for the Queer Winter Game Jam in the month of December 2024.

For many gay people, a cold winter is a time to browse their Grindr apps and scroll. We noticed how this browsing of profiles feels like a game, where you could try and see which profiles might fit together. We wanted to recreate this experience in our game.

It was fun and time-intensive to create all the art for our game and make the UI. With time running out, we couldn’t figure out a unique mechanic. We decided that a concentration game was the perfect choice for us, it is simple and it conveyed exactly the feeling of matching profiles that we were after.

Responses to the game were mixed. A lot of people didn’t understand what was expected of them, even when we added an explanation screen. And the worst part: when people did understand the rules, it seemed they were not enjoying it.

Poundr – gay dating app simulator

The Jam was over, and we felt like a missed opportunity. We made all those characters that we liked, and matching them activated our imagination.
We realized that we had two main things missing:
1. A logic by which to match profiles.
2. A clear goal for the player.
That’s when we decided to create Poundr. Still, with the same concept of matching profiles on a dating app, but this time we added stats to each profile, and you were playing a gay app engineer who had to maximize user engagement with the app.

We made a prototype, we were so excited that we decided to open a steam page for the concept.

That’s when we got the first blow. Steam banned our game.

We made a mistake: in the version we uploaded to Steam we used stock photos from Pexels. We thought that as long as the game is unpublished we don’t have to put effort on the art. But once we asked an executable to be approved for playtesting, we got a ban on the project. We learned that depicting real people in a fake dating situation is a big no-no for steam. We wished to update it with our art but it was too late.

Moving on – Game Jams

Well, we thought, that’s ok. We are indie and queer, maybe the mainstream distributer is not for us, let’s just figure this out and release it on itch. That’s when we got hit for the second time. We couldn’t seem to be able to make the game fun or interesting.

We just couldn’t make the concept work. Frustrated, we gave up on the project, we went on to game jams. We tried our hands at 3d queer horror with Trapped, made a queer crossword with images in Beyond Crossword, and made a narrative puzzle game Unlock to Erase.

But those cute characters didn’t get out of our head, we kept wanting to bring them together. That’s when we came up with the idea of putting them against each other.

How to Win a Date?

Did you ever get that feeling when you go on a date, that the person in front of you isn’t actually trying to get to know you, but instead, they are trying to dominate the situation? Unfortunately, in the gay dating scene, that is something that we’ve experienced quite often. Putting aside how horrible that situation in real life, it’s a great experience to explore in a game. That’s how we got the idea for the gay date card battler Win The Date.

Suddenly, everything clicked. We finally have a mechanic that is not only fun and strategic but also explores a real, nuanced part of our community’s experience. Our hope is that by gamifying this dynamic, players might be better equipped to recognize a toxic “date-battler” in real time and feel empowered to walk away.

After a long and winding road, we’re back on track and more excited than ever. We know there are challenges ahead: refining the way too complicated mechanics, building a meta-game, and squashing bugs. but we’re eager to tackle them. We believe we have something truly special on our hands.

Curious to see what a gay dating card battler looks like? Check out the latest prototype and let us know what you think!

We are proud to announce we released Prickle on all of the above platform, check it out here!

We made a horror game! Try it here.
At Bearly Fun Games we keep experimenting with queer experiences. This time we tried a bunch of new things together. This is our first attempt at 3D development in Godot. We learned a lot from it, about shaders, about model imports, and that making a 3D game to run in the browser is a nightmare.

Trapped was made for the Queer Horror Game Jam, we chose to tell the story of an lgbtq teen who is struggling in their own mind with the fear of coming out of the closet. Rachel Schumacher voiceover really brought life into the character.

Give it a go and let me know your thoughts, but please, download the game to your PC, the web version is too buggy

If you are interested in our other Queer Experiments check out:

• Unlock to Erase: Narrative puzzle game about erasing your memories, made for Godot Wild Jam
• Cuddler: Concentration matchmaking card game, made for the Winter Queer Jam
• Queer Foundation: Manage a gay organization, made for the Wild and Proud Godot Game Jam

I’m excited to share Sunbird Team will showcase Prickle in GameIS festival this Tuesday 13.5.25 
GameIS is the primary event of the Israeli Digital Games Industry, a convention filled with insightful conversations by industry leaders and indie developers of the Israeli Games Industry.
My first steps in the industry were getting to know people in this event, and even though unfortunately I won’t be attending this event by myself, I couldn’t been prouder that Prickle will display there!
Check us out if you are there

We decided to make the game about the lose of a friendship, as can happen when friendship and romantic feelings are getting mixed up. It relates to when I wanted to make personal games way back in 2019.

Please give it a try, I would love to hear your thoughts. We are at the stage of considering if we should expend on the concept.

If you like the concept, our studio made other queer attempts. You can check out Cuddlr the gay matchmaking memory game, or Queer Foundation where you have to choose which Queer organizations to support.

The theme for this year’s Global Game Jam was Bubbles.
We decided on this silly and fun idea, and build some challenging puzzles around it.

I focused on art for the game together with Shiri Blumenthal, a professional artist, who helped to guide me.

Our team:

 Shaked Lotan / Develompent, Tech Art, Animation
Ori Brusilovski / Development, Game Design
Asaf Omer Nudler / Game Design, Tech Art
Idan Zion / Music, Sound Design
Ido Adler (Me) / Art, Game Design
Shiri Blumenthal / Art

Give Catfish it a try:

Together with Oz we made Cuddlr, a cute gay memory game for the Queer Winter Jam.

This is our latest attempt as Bearly Fun Games where we try to experiment with queer experiences in games.

The game is simple, you have to find the couples by trial and error, and then you have to memorize your findings when new couples are being added.

While we make the attempt to remember the couples it’s interesting to find out the stories we tell ourselves about those randomly chosen couples and why they fit each other.

Check it out here:

What is Prickle?

If you’ve been following my journey or Sunbird Studio’s updates, you know already about Prickle. It’s a Sokoban-inspired puzzle game where you play as DadHog, a loving hedgehog parent collecting your hoglets scattered across the level. The catch? Every hoglet you pick up adds to your “Prickle,” a Tetris-like formation that makes squeezing through tight spaces a new challenge.

It’s wholesome, it’s tricky, and it’s filled with heart. And honestly, seeing DadHog trying to gain some control in those little cutscene still cracks me up.

The Journey to Release

I’m grateful to be part of Sunbird Studio team, they are amazing. Development wasn’t always smooth—Long nights were spent fiddling with Godot, we hit snags with shaders, level design, and the eternal battle of “does this make sense?” But every hurdle made the game better.

I want to shout out to the amazing community. The playtests where our carefully crafted systems got absolutely broken, especially the Linux community who are expert at finding bizarre glitches. The Twitch community, seeing streamers enjoy the demo or screaming at the screen with frustration reminded us in touch with our audience. And the many people who volunteered to help translate the game to different languages. Everyone who kept cheering us along the way, you made every bug fix worth it.

What’s Next?

Now that Prickle is live, I’m focused on listening to you. Your feedback is invaluable, and I’d love to hear your thoughts. Whether it’s level difficulty, new mechanics ideas, or even just screenshots of your weirdest Prickle formations, I’m all ears.

I also want to take a moment to thank again everyone who helped bring Prickle to life. From my team to the community, to anyone who just took a moment to wishlist it—thank you.

So, what are you waiting for? Grab a cup of tea, cozy up, and dive into Prickle. I can’t wait to see how you make the experience your own.

Let me know what do you think. And have fun.

List of lists – Israeli indie games:

• For the quickest updates on the industry, follow @IsraeliGames on Twitter.
• The backloggd list by Jackier offers a clean and simple display, other than the popular games it’s also featuring some old and forgotten titles.
• The Ping 972 list of Israeli Steam games includes sub-lists of released and free games. Maintained by Jono and myself.
• Headbang Games by Avishai Mizrav maintains games list on their webite, the only one which have a dedicated Israeli mobile games section.
• Israeli indie games is a beautiful legacy site by Idan Rooze, which is not maintained at the moment.
• Check out some game jam entries:
  • GMTK 2024 Jerusalem
  • GGJ 2024 Haifa
  • GGJ 2024 Tel-Aviv