Hello and Happy Valentines Day!

We've made it to Devlog #5 and a surprising amount of progress has been made!

The Start of a Cat Storm...

Progress So Far:

Rotten Alleyway

One of the most important areas in the game has finally come to life! I brought up plenty of times that backgrounds are my weak point, so I hunkered down and made something happen! So now we have the first hub area of the game set up!

The first hub area in the game: The Rotten Alleyway!

Finalized Animations!

I got around to the fixing up more of the Attack Animations in the game.

The only remaining attacks to do are the Aerial Light Attacks and the Grounded Heavy Attack!

Catat's New Attack Animations: Grounded Light Attacks!

Revised Dialogue Code!

I had to refactor a TON of my code for how the dialogue works in the game. The way I had it going before, it was just a simple typewriter effect that checked how much of the dialogue should be drawn. But that still meant that the entire thing was just one solid string. If I wanted to add text effects it'd be basically impossible unless I set up the code to draw every letter to the screen separately. So I did! And It works perfectly!

New Dialogue System allows for Color, Shake, And Wave Effects!

Kitt's Design!

Kitt's design has been finalized and I'm ready to start animating her! So far she's just been a second Catat following you around but not anymore! She has a ways to go before she's caught up with Catat but I'll be chipping away at it whenever I can!

Kitt's Design Side by Side with Catat!

New Music!

Catatattack has the First Song in it's OST: From the Top by @JordoPriceNG

This is gonna be the music for the initial tutorial section of the game! I can't wait to get around to it!

Visualizer for the JordoJams' Upload

What's Next?:

Everything is proceeding smoothly! Hopefully, I can get the Tutorial Section done in about a month or two. Then I'll be on good time to get some real levels done and ready for a Newgrounds Demo! I was thinking on the possibility of a Newgrounds High Score Contest for the Demo but I'll worry about that later!

Conclusion:

A lot more has happened than I expected to 2 weeks but I only see this as a good thing! If I can keep this pace I'm sure I could get even more people hyped up for the game when I have something proper to show for it! I'll be back with more!!!

New Catatattack Logo!

Hello and Happy uhhh... TUESDAY YEAH!

It's Devlog #4 for Catatattack and I've got some stuff to share!

Thumbnail for Catatattack's Mobile Game Jam Submission

Progress So Far:

Firstly, there is a new twitter account dedicated to the progress of Catatattack! Follow if you're interested in more consistent updates!

GUNNER ENEMY TYPE IS COMPLETE!

Both the Brawler and Gunner Enemy Types have been fully completed, start to finish! Which means the human enemies for the early demo are complete!

Additional Polish

The Debug Level has been polished up substantially!

There's a bit more detail in the background and a simple particle effect in the air around you.

There's a new Chromatic Aberration effect when you get hit.

A P1 Symbol Appears if you move too far from your teammate in Co Op

Errors with unplugging Gamepads have been solved.

Problems with Pausing and Particle Effects have been solved.

Problems with Dialogue infinitely looping have been solved.

Polished Debug Area with the Gunner!

What's Next?:

Next up on the chopping block is finalizing a bunch of the animations that have been placeholders and starting the first Stray Kat enemy of the game. The Stray Kats are required for the tutorial I'll need to make so this is an important next step! Similarly I'll need to work on designing and adding Kitt to replace the duplicate Catat that follows you around!

This should take a while but after all this, I'll be able to start the tutorial section of the game and move on from there to making the first level! We're almost there!

Progress is being made at a steady rate which is great! But it is clear that this game will take a while to complete. At some point I may look for help with things I can and can't do to speed up production. But that's a future me issue.

Roadblocks:

The roadblocks in production aren't necessarily related to the game itself but rather things that I have to do separate from the game. I'm a GED Teacher, which is a pretty time consuming jobs, and also an animator for SmashBits. I have another video to do for them and lesson plans to make and teach so Catatattack development will be slowed as a result. Also I plan to make another game for Pico Day 2024! Essentially, a lot will be happening that will be eating up Catatattack's development time so thing will likely be slowing down from here.

Conclusion:

As more work is done I get closer and closer to a Demo Release and hopefully finding a publisher will to invest in my ideas. It's hard to advertise what I'm making due to the game being so unfinished but if I can get enough people excited about Catatattack, I'm certain I can make it pay off with the game's release! I'll see you all in 2 weeks with another progress update!

New Catatattack Logo!

Hello and Happy New Years!

We're on Devlog #3 for Catatattack and some big stuff has happened!

Thumbnail for Catatattack's Mobile Game Jam Submission

Progress So Far:

New Attack: Pouncing

When you dive onto an enemy you pounce them, which works as a grab which you can use to launch the grabbed enemy into the other, slam them to the ground, or bounce off of them for a quick escape!

Brawler Enemy Type

The first enemy type has been completed! This enemy type is the Brawler enemy who chases you down and tries to hit you with an attack or dash attack. But more importantly with the creation of this enemy, I now have a complete base for every enemy type moving forward! This will make creating enemies for the game a whole lot more streamlined!

Updated Catatattack Combat Gameplay!

Gunner Enemy Type Plans

The second enemy type has been started! The gunner is going to be a long ranged enemy type that locks onto you for their attack and keeps a fine distance. I've only just started their animations but things are looking good!

Gunner Inactive Idle, Activate, and Active Idle Animations

Buddy Character and Combat Locking

The buddy character that would follows you around, now properly fights with you during combat sections while enemies spawn! During these sections, you're locked to a certain position of the screen and have to clear out all the enemies to proceed, standard "Beat Em' Up" mechanics!

Demo Plans:

When I do nail down the demo, I want it to include 2 levels from both the Mafia and Police Paths for the game as well as the intro and tutorial sections of the game. This means I'd need 5 cutscenes, the first boss for both Police and Mafia, Cat Enemy Types for the Vent Combat and Tutorial, and 6 Enemy Types with Male and Female variants. In other words it'll be a lot, mostly because Catatattack hasn't proven itself as a game concept yet. And the demo is my first real chance to make that happen. Cultivating an audience isn't an easy endeavor after all, and the occasional twitter post has it's limits in that regard so that demo is the real kicker here.

I plan to post it on Newgrounds first and Steam a week later, as a thank you to the site for making the game a reality with that initial Game Jam. If I could I'd hide some Newgrounds easter eggs around, but I'm not too sure how the copyright on that would work.

I'm not too big a fan of doing a Kickstarter or something like that because it seems like a lot more pressure than I can handle, but that won't be a concern for a while.

Princess Kattayy Design!

Conclusion:

With the next enemy type on the horizon, soon I'll be able to safely start the intro and Tutorial sections of the game without past development issues popping up and confusing me! As of now I'm still lacking in background art capability, I do have someone I can commission for music! JordoPrice is gonna help out on the music end! As far as the game's creation goes, I still need to make a proper demo and first I'll need to set up the initial systems of the game.

I've actually made a crazy jump in progress with that first enemy type, so I just need to keep this up. Sooner or later I'll need to say goodbye to the debug level I've been using and move onto more interesting matters! As always, more stuff has been wrapped up and I have a clear path for what needs to happen for the game to thrive.

New Catatattack Logo!

Hello and Merry Christmas!

Second Devlog and counting and I have a few new nuggets to share about Catatattack's production!

Thumbnail for Catatattack's Mobile Game Jam Submission

Progress So Far:

A bit has happened as far as programming goes.

I edited the game's loading system to be a lil more convenient in terms of calling it in game and I finally figured out key rebinding! So all the pertinent backend stuff has been handled!

I also set up the code for the Partner Character to follow you around! Mostly inspired by Tails' behavior in the Classic Sonic games though I will have to account for some things like combat and desyncing (They can be caught behind walls). This partner character will be Kitt, the stray cat that accompanies Catat throughout the game!

Kitt's Initial Design, Jan 3, 2023

She used to be named Kitteh and wore a collar

I started the sprites for the Basic Male Brawler Enemy type. I doubt I'll ever avoid the FNF Art Style allegations but hey I can't help how I do things. There will be Male and Female variants of every enemy type for the sake of variety!

Brawler Enemy Design

From this point on, I'll need to have my pen taped to my hand to actually get stuff done which has been kind of difficult as far as motivation goes but I'll just have to stick it out!

Character Customizer:

I bought Kirby Fighters 2 on a whim and played through it thinking about the original Kirby Fighters which was a sub game for Kirby Triple Deluxe. That made me think about possible sub games for Catatattack! There were plans for a Challenge Run style game where players compete in random minigames but I eventually realized that'd be way too much effort for a mode most people would ignore. So I've restructured that idea into a simpler Endless Arena game mode where you compete with friends for the most points in an Arena starring every enemy type in the game and maybe some mini boss appearances.

But I wanted a way to spice the idea up a bit more, and a new idea came to me after studying up on Gamemaker's capabilities. I could program and design a system where you can import your own assets into the game and play as a customized character that you can save and share around! I could even add functionality for custom stages, all in game, easy to use, no code required! I've prototyped code for this so I know I can get it to work, the only limitation is that it'd be a PC only feature as Console players wouldn't have the means to do so but it's still an interesting idea.

Life Stuff:

Finished College and got promoted from a Teaching Assistant to GED Teacher! So I get paid more to work MUCH less. Coupled with no more classes to go to, I'm freed up on time! Of course I'm still an animator for Smash Bits so some time will have to go to that but all signs are pointing towards Cat Game!

Pico Day?:

I've been considering making another Pico Day game, but the time it'd take to make that happen is somewhat concerning, I got close last time but I wanna hit that #1 spot this year so I'm willing to sacrifice some Catatattack Dev to blow away what I did with Pico's Boss Run!

Pico's Boss Run!

Pico Day 2023 Submission

Conclusion:

A bit has happened, new possibilities have been realized, and things are looking up for the Cat Game. I've got a lot of animating and art to do. Especially background art... Until then let me know what ideas would be cool for the game if you care to drop em', I love reading comments!

New Catatattack Logo!

Hey guys,

Decided to use Newgrounds to better explain development stuff for Catatattack's full game development! Twitter Posts are good for show sort snippets but for an in depth explanation on how things are going, you can hear about it here!

Thumbnail for Catatattack's Mobile Game Jam Submission

What is Catatattack?

Catatattack was a submission I made for the Mobile Game Jam 2022 hosted by Stepford!

You can play it here!: Catatattack (Game Jam)

It was my first game in GMS2 after learning really basic Javascript in a college class. It doesn't hold up well now but it was a good starting point. Now I'm evolving the concept into something completely different with a full game experience! Basically nothing from the Game Jam is a good representation of what the game will be, though some interesting details will make a return.

Right now I'm working at the game slowly but surely and you can see a lot of my progress on my Twitter in between my arguments with strangers!

Progress So Far:

I've written out about 60 pages of planning for the game (goddamnlol) and designed some of the characters that'll show up throughout. The story's basically fully planned and last time I explained it start to finish to someone it took about an hour and a half (goddamnlol) so other than some writing changes down the line I should be set!

Catatattack Concepts: Character Designs for the Main Cast

As of now I'm still working out all the required backend debug stuff before moving onto the fun stuff, a big problem with my earlier games like Pico's Boss Run and the Mobile Game Jam Catatattack was that I just jumped into the fun bits and thought about optimization and accessibility later. Those games are really shit because of that but that won't be a problem with how I'm handling it now.

As of now Universal Gamepad Support, Gamepad Rebinding, Saving/Loading, Loading/Unloading Textures, Modular Dialogue Systems, Camera Control w/ Zoom Support, and Pause have all been set up ahead of time.

Multiplayer, Player Movement, Player Spawning, Seamless Room Transitions, Score Calculation, and some Gameplay Specific Elements have also been set up.

Essentially, all of the foundation is my focus before the game will be in a state where I can actually advertise it for what it's going to be and to be honest that's probably for the best. If I can handle everything important first, the game's development is basically just going to be me throwing whatever cool ideas I have into the game easily and quickly, allowing for more active and interesting development.

Limitations:

As it stands, the biggest limits to Catatattack are my own limits as an artist. I'm not very good at background art and that's REALLY important for the game. I've been practicing a bit on that end but the worst case scenario is just hiring someone to help out on that front. Same goes with Music, I can't do that lol. Fortunately that's something that can wait for a while and I've got some people who can help me with that too.

As for programming I'd say I have it handled, I'm no master but there's nothing planned for the game that seems completely out of my skill level and all the difficult stuff has been set up already. Thankfully, Money isn't really a concern as of now so I'm not really thinking about crowdfunding or anything stressful like that. For now I can just focus on what I can do and chip away at the game with the time I can work at it.

Catatattack Concepts: Logo for the District 19 Mafia

Next Few Steps:

The next steps in development are to wrap up the player move set and set up an enemy type or two. The game's combat is gonna be a bit more in depth than your average "hit the attack button until their HP hits 0" combat system so this'll be a while, not to mention I have to animate and code it all myself during my off time.

Other than that I'll need to set up a Pause Menu, a simple Start Screen, and Keyboard Rebind support before I can see the game development as ready to really kick off. So it's gonna be a while of boring prototype stuff but hopefully it won't be too long.

Catatattack Concepts: Logo for the District 19 Precinct

Plans for Demo:

I have about two options when it comes to a Demo Release:

A) Make a demo level unrelated to the actual game that shows the gameplay formula for when it drops.

B) Release the beginning of the actual game and two levels as a taste of what's to come.

This could be a two step plan of just doing both in order but I'll see when I get to that point.

Conclusion:

Future Devlogs likely won't be so long but I had to start off strong. I'm pretty sure the new direction for this Cat Game will be magically and and can't wait to show everyone my ideas. If you have any questions I'll respond as best I can!

New Logo for Catatattack

I forgot to release it earlier but better late than never! You'll need GMS2 to open the stuff, beware my code is kinda messy, I just ran through it as fast as I could to make it to Pico Day at the time! There's also dialogue system in here that I didn't do anything with so you can have fun with that and see the unused stuff!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kSsiBVzCSx-lXv56NKg_8VFjzAo7f65d/view?usp=sharing