Hickory
This game was originally made in its entirety in 96 hours for the GMTK 2026 Game Jam to the theme "Count Down". All art, music, voice lines, and code were made during the jam and are entirely original.
As of July 31st, 2026, minor fixes have been included to improve the player experience. Please see this dev post for details!
If you're experiencing lag consider downloading the game!
- 3 stages and 1 boss fight
- Hand drawn storybook style graphics (100+ illustrated assets)
- 4 minigames to master
- Over 20 minutes of original music
Check out the album HERE
Hickory, dickory, dock,
The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
the mouse ran down,
Hickory, dickory, dock.
The Clocktower, maintained by the clockwork dolls, has become infested with rats! Your fellow dolls are down for the count and it's up to you, Hickory, to repair the broken machinery, fend off the pests, and settle this once and for all. Be careful! The clock is what keeps you wound up and ticking. Time slows down for you as the clock counts down so don't let it fall into disrepair!
Daniel Graves - Lead Programmer and Developer
Jonathan Xu - Programmer and Designer
Emiliano A. - Art Director
Coco Wang - Artist and Illustrator
Yishan Liu - Artist and Illustrator
Wirovin - Environment Artist
Benjamin Wang - Composer and SFX
Desolo Zantas - Composer and SFX
47A - Vocal Talent
Jason Li - Producer
Additional Credits
Special thanks to the folks that helped playtest and provided advice, support, and feedback over the course of the Jam:
- Members of the University of Waterloo Game Development Club
- Audrey, Yulian, and Michael
- Jasmine and Matthew
- Josh
Known Bugs, Errors, and Missing Features
- [WebGL/Web Browser]: Game will only work on Chrome/Chromium-based browsers and Firefox.
- [Windows]: Quit button does not work. Alt + F4 or Task Manager must be used to close the game.
- [Windows]: Some displays that are more narrow than a 16:9 aspect ratio (i.e. 4:3) may not have content scaled appropriately.
Download
Development log
- Fan Art Appreciation Post15 days ago
- Post-Jam Updates15 days ago
Comments
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Yeah, I really hate moving my mouse or finger around for stuff like this. It feels stupid because there's such a strong disconnect between what I'm doing and what's happening.
I hate that I have to use cursor keys AND click. Let me use just one or the other. This isn't an FPS and if it was, there'd be a necessity because the keys are being used for everything else and I need to aim. The mouse doesn't aim at all here. Also, I got stuck on plugging the steam and died. I plugged all the holes and nothing happened so I started unplugging them, wondering what I was supposed to do. The screen turned grey. It's pretty stupid if such a simple thing gets me killed. And it's not much fun using a mouse or finger to wiggle things out of gears. This is the game? It looks nice but the gameplay kind of sucks.
no hate but it's supposed to be challenging and fun. if it doesn't suit your preference of gameplay then just don't play it at all.
I have. Perhaps the challenge and fun shouldn't come from struggling with the controls or gameplay.
Must be a skill issue, I didn't experience any of your listed points.
my favorite game ever, loved the art and the soundtracks even more
I had so much fun! Loved the music & the artwork.
Amazing game! I would absolutely buy it for mobile.
this is sooooc cut
Loved the game! :D
Hey there, just here to make a suggestion if you ever wanted to update this game.
You should really add an incentive for the player to kill the rats.
I don't see any reason to keep the rats alive.
Because from my perspective, the rats are actually beneficial in clearing the game faster since they break machines.
Maybe you can have a requirement to kill all rats before a level ends.
The boss fight was too easy.
There was nothing stopping the player from just ignoring all the machines and rats, and just whack the hell outta rat king into oblivion. lol
fastest I could do was 36 seconds (killing the boss, normal mode)
is it supposed to be pitch black at the beginning? i can't see where i'm going and keep running into stuff. Playing web version, normal mode, on the latest version of firefox. otherwise, very fun and charming game :)
lovely little game
Some very contented gameplay, just a hint of critique ;)
peak
It's wonderful !
I think this game hates me!! I had issues with the gears I thought you had to wiggle the gears at least 3 times before it went away but my friend was able to flick them in one go?? That was holding me back so long which made it like impossible to manage...Maybe explain it a little better like "flick them hard" idk. Even then sometimes they wouldn't flick!!
The gears also bugged on me as well once I finished a gears it would get stuck on the gears screen and then game over ): a
Also you should be able to go behind the poles on the second floor because it looks like you should be able to but you can't!! Love the music and art style though <333
This is my bad!! The intention was to wiggle the mouse relatively strong and only recently I realized people could just flick them hard haha. I'll take a look at adding sensitivity options in the future, sorry about that!
Also I'll take a look at the gear bug, I thought that got fixed but looks like I've got more work to do lol. Thanks so much for the feedback!
So cute! I loved this game, it was pretty difficult for me (I'm not proud that I played it on easy) But the art and the music was genuinely jaw-dropping, I loved it!
Woah A Fresh New game. Cant Wait To play
Loved everything about it <3
The Rat King seems to have come from Isaac, perhaps due to its vomiting attack.
Monstro was my inspiration lmao except I didn't have time to make him bounce around sadly
The rats sometimes get stuck running into a wall or object, don't know if that's intentional
Such a Nice game!!, Great Concept
edit: Loved the ART, and Music
Dude this is such a cute game, if there was a like full huge game with this same premise and more in depth story and characters and stuff id buy it in a heartbreat
Very well done, especially for working with a team under this time constraint!
cant move. dont know why using wasd just doesnt work but my keyboard does work and i am focused into the game. so idk
The atmosphere was fantastic!
The characters were also very charming!
I can't get over how beautiful and polished this game is! Kinda gives me Professor Layton vibes. And it ran smoothly even playing in-browser on a 14-year-old laptop. Incredible work!
Oh this is GORGEOUS- I don't even have words <3 The art the music the environment the EVERYTHING <3<3<3<3<3 As a rat lover it is strange to be on the other side, however even I know they're out of line here, I apologise for my brethren. I do get the appeal of living in the clocktower though, many things to chew and shiny gears to hoard <3 Anyway I genuinely love this!!
I love it, congrats
Wow, just wow. If you told me this was a Demo for a full steam release game, I would definitely believe you. I can't believe you guys made this in 4 days.
really loving the 100 rats option
This is so cool! Amazing work, you've all outdone yourselves!
Cool!
This is beautiful!!
Such a well made game! I can see why you would need 4 people working on the art haha, awesome! Music was top tier too
I'm amazed by the level of detailing in the game the audio, art, narrative, gameplay and everything that too within a short period of time. I believe you guys can make even more interactive and story rich game, so please continue to make more game. Amazing work to everyone in the Second Fiddle Studio team!! GG!!
i hate those rats
This could be someone's life project. Amazing game.
IMBA
I assume you mean it's imbalanced? Our post-jam hotfix adds different difficulty modes
No no, I meant that the game is insanely cool! in Russian, this is called in one word "imba".
This game feels like it was made to be a niche Nintendo DS gem that you'd try to recommend to everyone you know.