A Nibble Tale

About the Game

In A Nibble Tale, someone made one mistake too many: they touched Pinpin's snack.

Pinpin is small, cute, probably far too nervous, and absolutely not ready to forgive. Fight through a chain of rooms filled with rats, grenadiers, shamans, tanks, spiders, elite enemies, and a miniboss in a fast-paced action game where objectives change, pressure rises, and your character gets more exhausted as the run goes on.

The rules are simple: clear the room, survive a pressure wave, or hunt down a priority target before it escapes. But after each completed room, the game forces you to choose a malus. Pinpin becomes less comfortable to play, monsters become more dangerous, future rooms get more crowded, and even your little brother's help can turn into another problem.

This is not a heroic quest to save the world. This is a story about a stolen snack, rats who went too far, and a rabbit settling the score room by room.

Key Features :

• Fast and readable top-down action combat.

• Short runs built around successive rooms.

• Varied room objectives: elimination, survival, priority target.

• Cumulative malus system after each room.

• Hero, monster, room, super, and little brother maluses.

• Enemy roles with distinct behaviors: fast rats, grenadiers, shamans, tanks, spiders, and a miniboss.

• Dynamic waves and constant pressure during survival objectives.

• Larger, tougher elite priority targets that try to run away.

• Permanent progression through the gym.

• Keyboard and controller support.

• Steam achievements and Steam Cloud integration planned/supported depending on the build.

Gameplay Loop :

• 1. Leave the gym.

• 2. Enter a room generated from a pool of layouts.

• 3. Survive the imposed objective.

• 4. Choose a malus.

• 5. Push forward to the miniboss, then into the sewers.

• 6. Die, progress, come back stronger, and try again.

The further a run goes, the less comfortable Pinpin becomes to control. That is intentional. Fatigue, punishing choices, and increasingly aggressive rooms are core to the game's identity.

Maluses

Maluses are the main engine of difficulty.

• Hero maluses exhaust Pinpin: reduced healing, unstable rage, dash exhaustion, reduced max health.

• Monster maluses empower enemies: elites, vengeful rats, stronger tanks, faster grenadiers.

• Room maluses make future rooms more aggressive: more rats, more pressure, faster spawns.

• Super maluses are rare and brutal: permanent poison, reduced max health, famine, exhaustion.

• Little brother maluses can appear if your little brother helps Pinpin, because even help can come at a cost.

Tone and World

A Nibble Tale is built on contrast: a cute rabbit, a colorful world, and absurd cartoon violence over a deliberately tiny stakes problem. The game does not take itself too seriously, but it fully embraces punitive difficulty and runs that can spiral out of control fast.

Game Status

The game is currently in beta.

Content, balancing, visuals, rooms, enemies, and maluses are still evolving. The current version is focused on testing run pacing, combat readability, permanent progression, Steam integrations, and replayability.

Controls

Keyboard:

• Movement: WASD / ZQSD depending on configuration

• Attack: I

• Special attack: O

• Dash: P

• Interact: F

• Pause: Escape

Controller:

• Movement: left stick

• Attack: face button

• Dash and skills: action/shoulder buttons depending on controller

• Pause: Start / Options