The crew of four cloaked foragers stands in front of Old Shellby, the giant snail house, at dusk, fireflies around them and a beam of light rising into a purple sky.

Shellby & Co. logo: a lilac cartoon snail with a golden shell and a little chimney, beside the name in yellow lettering with a red ampersand.

A totally legitimate shell company.

In development since September 2026 · co-op for 1–4 players · PC (Steam) · no public build yet

Trailer

What it is

Shellby & Co. is a cute first-person co-op foraging game for up to four friends. Your crew works for a company that lives inside Old Shellby, a giant snail whose house is bigger on the inside. Every morning the snail stands at the edge of a new forest. You ring the bell, walk out through its mouth and fill your baskets with mushrooms, berries and herbs. Then you get everything home before midnight.

The company has a quota, due every third day. The best finds only show themselves after dark. And not everything you see out there is real.

Feature highlights

  • Forage by day.

    A forest full of mushrooms and herbs, each with a place it likes and a time it appears.

  • Trust nothing.

    Lookalikes grow beside the real thing. A Butterbell and a False Butterbell differ by one detail you have to learn.

  • Eat it and find out.

    Some finds make you Tiny, some make you Glow, some make you sneeze a cloud. Some make you see things your friends can't.

  • Greed against the clock.

    The forest pays best at night. A horn across the map tells you midnight is near.

  • Cute by day, uncanny by night.

    The Gardener between the trees, the Gobbler, the Hush down in the catacombs. Each follows one rule you can learn. Never gore.

  • A home that travels.

    The snail's house is your lobby, shop and safe place, with a map table, a Radio, a quota board and a hatch for everything you carried back.

  • Alone together.

    Spread out, shout across the woods with proximity voice, and carry a sprout home between you.

Screens

  • Four cartoon foragers in green, red, purple and teal cloaks walk out of a giant lilac snail's mouth into a sunny birch clearing, a beam of light rising above the snail.
    Old Shellby parks at the edge of a sunny clearing and the crew walks out of its mouth.
  • A warm, round wooden room inside the snail's shell: a brass bell under a little roof, a round map table on a pink rug, a quota board on the wall, a radio, shelves and round windows.
    Inside the shell: the bell, the map table, the quota board and the Radio.
  • First-person view in a bright birch forest: a gloved hand reaches toward wild strawberries while three cloaked friends forage nearby; a small HUD shows basket, coins and quota.
    A morning's foraging in the Birchwood.
  • Two nearly identical yellow bell-capped mushrooms side by side; one has a thin ring on its stem.
    A Butterbell beside a False Butterbell. Can you tell which is which?
  • Foragers under mushroom effects at dusk: one shrunk to half size, one glowing with a warm light, one sneezing a little cloud.
    Eat what you find and see what happens: Tiny, Glow and a sneezing fit.
  • Three foragers, one with a lantern, in a dark forest beside giant pink-capped mushrooms, a shaft of light falling through the canopy.
    The deep woods under the Drift Trees, where the light comes down in shafts.
  • Seen from behind, five foragers walk across a meadow at dusk toward a tall golden beam of light, fireflies drifting around them under a purple sky.
    Dusk: fireflies come out and the crew heads for the beacon.
  • At night a tall shadowy figure stands between two birch trunks while a forager holds up a glowing lantern.
    Night. The Gardener stands between two birches, and a forager holds up a lantern.
  • The Gobbler, a big round hungry creature, in the forest at dusk.
    The Gobbler.
  • A small, crooked hut in the woods, home of the Hermit who trades with the crew.
    The Hermit's hut.
  • A stone catacomb corridor lit by a lantern; in a dark doorway, a small pale creature with huge glowing pink ears.
    A catacomb by lantern light, and the Hush's glowing ears in a doorway.
  • A forager carries a friend who has turned into a little potted sprout across the meadow toward the snail and its beam of light.
    A friend carries a potted sprout home, toward the snail and its beacon.

How the game is built

Shellby & Co. is built by a team of AI agents with one human owner. A planner writes small task files. Builder and artist agents each work in their own copy of the project, and an independent reviewer agent re-runs the proofs before anything is merged. The owner plays the builds with friends and sends findings, which outrank the queue.

  • Engine: Godot 4.7, GDScript. Multiplayer through GodotSteam, with a plain network fallback for testing.
  • Art: every model, rig and animation is generated by Blender Python scripts. No hand-modelled assets.
  • Sound: sound effects, voices and music made with ElevenLabs.
  • Proof over claims: over 2,000 automated tests and 38 gates, with bot players that play whole days.
  • Everything is data: species, effects, creatures, places and forests are registry entries. Adding one needs no code change.

Where it stands

A playable build exists, and the owner plays it with friends. It has:

  • the full day, from the morning bell to midnight;
  • the quota cycle and the shop;
  • creatures and hazards that each follow their own rule;
  • generated forests and catacombs;
  • proximity voice.

Still to come: menus and settings, a visual pass (shader, lighting, outlines), more forests and creatures, and polish.

Tech stack

  • Godot 4.7 (GDScript)
  • GodotSteam
  • Blender (Python-scripted assets, Video Sequencer for the trailer)
  • ElevenLabs (sound effects, voices, music)
  • GUT tests
  • Claude agents (planner, builders, artists, reviewers)

There is no public build yet. A Steam page is coming.