Sunday, August 31, 2014

Cat Concerto - Now with 80% less yowling!


(No, "Cat Concerto" is not the new name for "Cat Project".)

I haven't had much time to work on "Cat Project" this week; I had to take care of a friend's dog and bird (no cats though, except for a surprise visitor in the backyard). So the game is pretty much the same as it was last week. However, I did get a chance to work on some of the background music for the game, which I've neglected to talk about since I started this project.

Currently, I have two tracks to show. To give a bit of background, both of them are "hand-me-down" tracks; music that was composed for other projects that got cancelled that I fixed up and remixed for this one. No point in letting them go to waste. The first one is the title theme:



I don't know if it is technically a waltz (maybe it's a minuet, or some perverted fusion of the two, who knows?), but I just call it that out of habit. In any case, it's a fuzzy, lighthearted track that sets the mood for the game.

Next up is a level theme track thing; it's a work-in-progress:



The vaguely "meow"-sounding lead synth in the second half of the track is a patch I accidentally made with fiddling and twiddling around with the knobs on the Dreamstation DXi2. It seems appropriate for the subject matter at hand and I kinda like it. I just hope the novelty doesn't wear off to quickly.

Saturday, August 23, 2014

Kilkenny Kitty 2 - When Cats Attack


Meow!

M.S.T.O.P. here with some new updates on the "Cat Project". I'm going to try to make my updates weekly, syncing them with Screenshot Saturday. Here are this week's updates:


New combat mechanics

Last week, I demonstrated some changes to the combat mechanics: faster swats, tougher enemies and hitstun.

*smack* *smack* *smack*

This week, I made some more additions to make "Cat Project" even more action-oriented: knockback and attack-cancelling.

Kitty is not amused by practical joke. Also, an innocent
laser pointer gets caught in the crossfire and the toothbrush
begins its new career as part of a  juggling act.

Weak swats now push enemies back slightly; they can also be cancelled into another weak swat if it connects with an enemy, like in many beat 'em up and fighting games. Strong swats push enemies back further (though the hitstun the same, at least for now), but cannot be cancelled.

ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA

Increased kitty health

Begone, evil spirit of good dental health!

Don't get too attached to it, the GUI will definitely change in the future. Health meters now show that both kitty and his enemies are no longer one-hit wonders. I haven't worked out how kitty's increased stamina will interact with the powerup system. (Previously, the powerup doubled as an additional hit point that was lost when kitty took damage, like in Mario games.)

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Kilkenny Kitty - "Cat Project" Update

I haven't had much of a chance to work on "Cat Project" this week due a multitude of events and factors in real life that took up my time. Nonetheless, I still have a few updates to share. I was experimenting with speeding up the pace of the game; besides increasing kitty's walking speed, I also changed the kitty's swats so that they come out faster, but each individual one is weaker. This means (at normal strength) kitty will now have to combo enemies into oblivion.

Eww. Dirty toothbrush! *smack* *smack* *smack*

The old, slower and stronger swat is now an ambush/charged attack. Holding down the attack key/button will make kitty raise his paw in waiting, ready to to deliver a strike more powerful than a regular swat at a moment's notice.

Kitty sneak attack

With this change, the Maneki Neko power's beckoning ability is now exclusively performed by the charged swat.

Come to me! ... I said, come to me!

Friday, August 8, 2014

An update on the "Cat Project"

I am participating in the ROM Game Jam this weekend, but before I go and start talking about that all weekend, I just want to update you on the status of the "Cat Project". I'm in a bit of a hurry, so I'll try to make it short.

To recap, I started this project two weeks ago. I don't have a name for it yet, so I'm just going to call it "Cat Project" for now. The game is about, you guess it, cats: their behaviours and quirks (both from my experience with cats in real life and what YouTube has "taught" me), their folklore, and some human misconceptions about them.

The basic premise of the game is you, as a kitty, have to rescue kittens from the tops of towers and swat away amnoying human technology along the way: noisy smartphones, hostile spray bottles, the unobtainable bright red dot, etc. Kitty will also collect "mouseys", the currency of this game, that will be used to "buy" things. There will be various power-ups that transforms his appearance and gives him special kitty powers, such as "Maneki Neko", which allows kitty to beckon mouseys to come to him.

Some changes since last time:
  • Redid the foreground and background tiles (they're still in an experimental phase). I also changed up my tiling system so that characters and objects no longer look like they're floating above the ground.

Out with the old...
...and in with the new.
  • Added graphics for "Maneki Neko". In Japanese folklore, statues and figures this calico Japanese bobtail in known for beckoning ("maneki") good fortune to their owners. In "Cat Project", every time Maneki Neko kitty makes a swipe with his paw, nearby mouseys will be pulled towards to him.

Feline Pied Piper
  • Added a new enemy, the Spray Bottle (shown in the bottom-right corner of the picture above). This object seems harmless, but it can attack kitty by spraying him with water without warning.

And here's a video showing the current build in action:


Sunday, August 3, 2014

KITTY! First look at my upcoming game project: "Cat Project".

Meow.

It's been a while since I posted here, but now I'm here to show you an early peek at my upcoming game project. I don't have a name for it yet, so I'm just calling it "Cat Project".



The game is based on, you guess it, cats: their behaviours and quirks (both from my experience with cats in real life and on YouTube), their folklore, and some human misconceptions about them.

The idea I have so far is you, as a kitty, will have to rescue kittens from the tops of towers (and other lofty sturctures) and fight through annoying human technology (e.g. noisy smartphones, mysterious humming toothbrushes, an unobtainable bright red dot, etc.). Kitty will also collect "mouseys", the currency of this game, that will be used to "buy" things and various power-ups that transforms his appearance and gives him special kitty powers.

A picture maybe worth a thousand words, but they don't do as much justice as a video would. So here's a video showing the core idea of the game (and some other little details):


So what does the feline community think of all this? Let's do a quick interview.


Hmm, I wonder if that cat's jaw was ever fixed.

Meow.