Secret Squirrel
Created: 2026-01-10 (13:53:00)Status: completed
Text exchange made for Bitsy Jam 99 - TEXT ONLY
Explore the margins of your city to unlock the code for a data dead drop.
For this jam, and this theme, my immediate instinct was to try replicate the signage and typography in the nature reserves around my home. I’ve written about this a million times before, but the nature reserves in my city seem to always have areas that are strictly off-limits. Sometimes it is for something mundane like a water reservoir, and sometimes it is because that area is super unsafe. But all you see is the fencing and signage.
It is bizarre to just be out walking and then confronted with a sign that reads ASBESTOS, which confirms that, yes, you probably should not jump the fence and explore, but which tells you nothing of why this area is full of ASBESTOS. Or more innocently, to come across FLOOD WAY and RESTRICTED ACCESS signs and remember there are channels and tunnels at the periphery of your town, running beneath your feet, to wonder what is in them.
Secret Squirrel is the name for a network of stormwater drains near me where people go urbexing. But secret squirreling could also plausibly describe a surreptitious exchange, the kind that might take place in some abandoned drain or tunnel. Hence why this game involves abstract clues, combination locks and a convoluted usb data exchange.
I’m not sure how well it coheres in the end. I would like to try something like this again, from a different angle. I hope you enjoy it all the same!
See also
Endmatter
Tags: @bitsy @completed @my-games
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