Last Updated: December 28, 2025 | PUBLIC FACING VER.

🦋 Abstract

Ducks Afar is a story-driven puzzle game about tracking down your ducks across a faraway galaxy. You collect packs of HARDWORMS to craft tools and lure ducks, but the packs are highly magnetic and can’t be split or combined by hand.

Combining a 1-Hardworm Pack with a 2-Hardworm Pack through an ANCIENT MACHINE. All art/UI designs are temporary.

To get the exact amounts you need, you must use ancient machines scattered through the world. Your ducks like their hardworm meals portioned exactly: not any more or any less!

🐥 Gameplay

All content below are from a single, fully working vertical slice level. I’ve drawn placeholder art for the character and interactables like crafting stations and obstacles, among other things.

Placeholder Key: | HEART = PET BOWL (GOAL) | TRIANGLE = ROCK OBSTACLE | CIRCLE = CRAFTING STATION | SQUAREs = ANCIENT MACHINE SLOTs | SMILEY = ANCIENT MACHINE OUTPUT | GRAY BLOCKs = IMPASSABLE WALLs

Walkthrough

You arrive on a one-screen island. The PET BOWL sits at the top of the island, out of reach.

A basic, barebones level with placeholder markers.

The requirement to win the level is clear: you need to place an exact number of hardworms (5) in the PET BOWL to lure out your missing duck.

The PET BOWL.

Scattered across the island are hardworm packs of different sizes. Each pack can be picked up, carried, and placed, but NEVER combined or split by hand. For example:

• A CRAFTING STATION requires 3 hardworms to create a bomb. You have a 1-hardworm pack and a 2-hardworm pack. You CANNOT combine these two packs by hand.
• A PET BOWL requires 5 hardworms for the duck lure. You have a 6-hardworm pack. You CANNOT create the duck lure for the PET BOWL, since you CANNOT separate a pack into two smaller packs by hand.

For both above cases, you need to use an ancient machine found in the world.

Picking up hardworms adds them to your inventory.

Picking up a 1-hardworm pack.

Picking up a 2-hardworm pack.