Tentacle Mart -v0.1.0- -strange Girl- Work Today

Tentacle Mart is a casual, adult-oriented interactive fiction game developed by Strange Girl Studios . Initially conceived as a spin-off of the popular Lovecraft Locker series, the project was officially canceled during development but remains available for free as an unfinished "work-in-progress". Gameplay Mechanics

Tentacle Mart

The gameplay in remains faithful to the Lovecraft Locker system but introduces new progression elements: Tentacle Mart -v0.1.0- -Strange Girl-

Gameplay Mechanics: The v0.1.0 Experience

memories

In v0.1.0, the Strange Girl operates under a "Sanity Economy." She isn't buying chips and soda; she is trading for sustenance . Every item you pick up in Tentacle Mart—a can of "Mimic Cola," a freezer pop shaped like a finger—costs a fragment of her past. The dialogue tree, written in broken, melancholic prose, reveals that she has been shift manager here for "longer than the concept of Tuesday." The Request: Periodically, the Strange Girl will approach

Crucially, the Strange Girl has no voice actor. All her dialogue is conveyed through text that types itself out, then erases itself backwards. To hear her voice, players have reported needing to wear headphones and turn the volume to max during the "3 AM save corruption" event—where she whispers the game's folder directory aloud. Creepy, but effective. Narration: close third or second-person present tense to

Visually, she’s an intentional uncanny valley: early-2000s flip phone, wet hair plastered to her face despite the bone-dry store, eyes that track the player even when her back is turned. She never blinks. Her dialogue is minimal—three lines total in v0.1.0:

Tentacle Mart -v0.1.0- is available now on Windows and Linux via Itch.io. The developer has hinted that v0.2.0 will introduce a “Loyalty Card” system. We are afraid to ask what the rewards are.

1. The Request: Periodically, the Strange Girl will approach the counter and ask for specific, obscure items (e.g., *"Something that glows in the dark," *"Something that tastes like copper," or "A snack that bites back").
2. The Exchange: If the player gives her the correct item from their inventory (rather than selling it to her), she won't pay cash. Instead, she will smile disturbingly and slide a "Specimen Jar" across the counter. These jars contain tiny, anomalous creatures (e.g., a Mimic Leech, a Glowing Polyp, or a Whispering Spore).
3. The Shelf: Players can purchase a "Containment Shelf" for the store. Placing a Specimen Jar on the shelf adds it to the collection.
   • Narration: close third or second-person present tense to keep immediacy and uncanny intimacy.
   • Language: mix concrete urban details with metaphoric descriptions of the tentacles (e.g., “it tasted like late apologies”).
   • Repetition motif: a phrase or sound that recurs to mark trades and growing influence.
   • Show, don’t tell: reveal rules through transactions rather than expositional dumps.