GORT Industries

New digital kids activity just dropped! Free. Works in browser/on your phone. Kid-friendly single-tap interactions. Designed by a parent to distract their own children, so you know it's good.

https://gort-industries.itch.io/the-wheels-on-the-bots

Excited to share our virtual pet game, Desktop Pet Shop. We’ve added quests, new skins and new upgrades. We think it’s ready for y’all to try it out. Give it a try and us a follow!

https://gort-industries.itch.io/desktop-pet-shop

Idle Desktop Pet Shop by GORT Industries Virtual pet shop simulator

Have you checked out our itch page lately? It's got more than a dozen lil games now! When did that happen?

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Two graduates of the Vermont College of Fine Arts Writing for Children and Young Adults program recently released their first game for young children.

Gnomestead, now available on Steam, is a point-and-click farming experience somewhere between a pop-up book and a fully fledged video game. It rotates through the wheel of the year with eight different activities for players to help gnomes work in the garden.

It's intended to fill the space between quieter picture books and attention-hacking phone games, according to writer and designer Vander Gac, who graduated from VCFA in 2019.

“Video games are still a very new medium, but a lot of the content for young people seems to gravitate around microtransactions and maximizing engagement,” they said. “Gnomestead is our attempt to build something that focuses more on writing, art, and connection to the natural world.”

Gac worked with their coding partner for several years building small prototypes. In 2025, the team was joined by another VCFA grad, Marianne Murphy.

Marianne received an M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, and a B.F.A. in Animation at the University of the Arts.

"This game rewards exploration for young gamers and celebrates the passing of time in a meaningful way," she said.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2573650/Gnomestead/

Join the GORT Discord - https://discord.gg/MywvtDVRAJ

The Steam page for our newest upcoming game is now live!

Gnomestead on Steam Cozy point-and-click game for kids with eight different activities revolving around seasonal farm chores throughout the year. Help gnomes with planting, harvesting, foraging, chopping wood, and more.

Etsy shop has been updated with more bones! Including more glow-in-the-dark options.

https://retrofuturefitters.etsy.com

Spooky season is here and it is absolutely wild to see something I made for sale in a store in Montpelier.

( 95 State Street go now while everyone else is distracted by my weird artist statement or whatever.)

If you told me (Vander, a GORT Person) this the first time I came to VT for grad school in 2016, I would have assumed it would be something with a binding at

Then I would have asked you for any plans you were sent back to deliver.

ADHD, for me, means working on so many things at once that it can sometimes feel like none of them are making progress. Accepting that the metrics the rest of the world runs by were not designed for anyone with a disability helped me process the shame of hyper fixating on all sorts of passions and puzzles

These instruments are the direct result of giving myself permission to be the wacky inventor that I kept putting into all my stories because I was afraid the world would judge me for wanting to build things (and then getting distracted)

Keep going. The important work cycles back. You never know what you'll make.

COME PLAY

https://gort-industries.itch.io/scp-9000x

SCP-9000x by GORT Industries Come play with me