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Soft Toy Having a Hard Time
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About the game
You are a plush creature, a small stuffed rodent who has spent a carefree life on the Plane of Slumber, until a bolt of night terror sends your soft, stuffed body plunging into the dark, dirty and dangerous realm below. Your goal is to survive the Dungeon of Domesticity, which is a house, and not to let its vile inhabitants make you explode in a puff of shredded cotton.
Soft Toy Having a Hard Time is a turn-based roguelike in a dungeon built out of domestic things. You walk to move and walk into monsters to attack them, and the monsters have gloriously domestic names, such as Lint Lapins. You pick up weapons that are everyday objects, from a kitchen knife to a screwdriver, a wrench, a badminton racket or a golf club, and a flashlight for the rooms that are pitch-black.
Your Holding-It-Together points (H.P.) do not come back by themselves. You patch yourself up with sewing kits and stitches, and you can mend your gear the same way. Sleeping on a bed ends the day, and you cannot go back to a previous day, so each night is a choice about what to do before you close your eyes. The game has three endings of different difficulty, many items have hidden uses, and the author's advice is to be nice to jellyfish.
A run takes about half an hour, and the story and the hints come in the game's own message window.
Playing it here
The game was made for TIC-80, a fantasy console: an imaginary 1980s-style computer with a 240 by 136 screen and 16 colours, for which independent developers write new games. It runs here in the official TIC-80 web player, and its code is written in Python. Click Play, wait a moment while the game loads and use the arrow keys.
There is no save: a run is meant to be played in one sitting. Esc opens the TIC-80 menu. A gamepad works directly, and on touch screens an on-screen D-pad and buttons appear.
Controls
| Key | Gamepad | Action |
|---|---|---|
| Arrow keys | D-pad | move; attack by walking into an enemy |
| Z | A | look around |
| X | B | rest for one turn |
| A | X | open the inventory |
| S | Y | show the message log |
| Esc | — | TIC-80 menu |
A few things worth knowing
Hit points do not regenerate. Save your healing items and sewing kits for when you really need them, and avoid fights you do not have to take.
You cannot return to an earlier day. Sleeping on a bed ends the day for good, so finish what you want to do first.
Try things. Many items have hidden uses, and the Look command (Z) tells you more about what is in front of you.
Frequently asked questions
Is my progress saved? No. The game has no save, and a run lasts about half an hour.
Does it work on a phone? The on-screen buttons appear on touch screens, but the game uses four buttons and a lot of small text, so a keyboard is better.
Is it free? Yes. The authors released it under the MIT licence.
Credits and licence
Soft Toy Having a Hard Time was made by The Plush Girls for the Seven Day Roguelike Challenge 2025. It is released under the MIT licence, chosen in the header of the cartridge, which holds the game's complete source code in Python. It runs here in the TIC-80 web player (MIT licence). The licence texts are linked from this page.