Where the hell have you been?

I know... It's been a looooooooong while since the last devlog but the reason is pretty straightforward! I truly underestimated how much time and effort goes into making a real game like this. Every time I think I'm almost there, I get hit with the rude awakening that I'm not. Setting deadlines in general doesn't work out well for me so I realized it's best to just work until I have something of value to show. This works out well for simple social posts but a devlog needs more juice than a new attack or small milestone. Eventually I decided to just keep going until I was done and then release a devlog but that's no fun either. So here I am now!

What's Up?:

The actual content of the Demo has been done for a while but there's a lot more to a game than the immediate playtime. This is a full experience and that means I should be preparing for it. On top of that I'm still very much unknown. Outside of a couple of games I don't have a fanbase to fall back on. Essentially this Demo is my main shot at promoting what the game is capable of! It needs to be perfect. So lets get into what's happened so far!

What a beautiful night...

The Title Screen has finally come to life! It came out just about how I imagined it and I love it! The music makes a return from the menu theme of the original game jam version of the game!

Cat Cuddles can defy the Absolution of Death itself!

There's been more of a focus on the Multiplayer side of the game as well! You can see it well here, when you get knocked down, your buddy can pick you back up with some Kitty Cuddles! Kitt might act shy about it but she loves it!

Oof... didn't nail that landing either...

If you REALLY screw up, you'll succumb to a Game Over... No worries! You can pick right back up from where you left off! Practice makes Perfect as you know! Also giving up is for suckers so don't.

Pick your Poison!

Option Menus are a necessity for any game! Fiddling with whatever can make the game more comfortable or performant! And I wanted to make sure it looked nice too!

Those look familiar!

Full Controller Support AND Glyphs to boot! Set them yourself or let the game read the controller you're using and set it automatically. These took longer to implement than you'd think and there are much more of them than I'm willing to show...

That's a lot of words...

The way I handled dialogue previously was a problem waiting to happen. With all of the dialogue managed within the code, any potential localization would be HELL to implement. So I've switched to using csv files to hold dialogue with translations managed by the player's settings!

You can't see it in motion but it's nice and smooth...

The Newgrounds Build has had some interesting developments! As you know from the prior devlogs, the HTML5 export has been increasing volatile since Gamemaker clearly doesn't pay it much mind. There's been ALOT of tricks or workarounds to get basic functionalities and the game was still held together by string. Fortunately, a WASM option has reared it's head thanks to the GX Games export option! Some annoying issues came up but the game feels just as performant as an exported build for Windows now. Downside? No Newgrounds Medals. This is an unfortunate one but if it Medals or Playability, I know what I'm choosing. Thanks to WASM exports supporting dynamic textures, my loading screens work again! Which means future demos may be able to handle being on Newgrounds as well!

Along with this you can see that the UI has seen a fresh coat of paint with Revamped Health Bars and Combo Meter!

Catatattack Cover Poster!

I'm skipping over a lot but you get the point. The game is a shiny evolution of what it once was with a fresh new poster to boot! So...

What's Left?:

The remainder of the work is revamping very old assets, spicing up on some SFX, waiting on Music from the composers, and most importantly (and time consumingly) Cutscenes! These cutscenes are definitely the toughest thing to do right now considering I want it to look as good as possible!

A Sketchy little storyboard of DeeJay's Introduction!

Conclusion:

So much has happened and so much more will come. We'll keep grinding as much as we can For those who read this far, I can not wait to impress you with this labor of love!

Meow!