Kittens of Fear
Update on 03-02-2022
* Increased Threat Scores on the Fear Mode enemies.
Update notes for version 0.9.1
* Deleted the Cultist Room's northeast "Voices of the Damned" speed reduction.
* Deleted the rare blinking phantom cat enemies in Fear Mode.
* Ghost Cat has the same chase speed regardless of difficulty.
* Shadow Cats have slightly less speed.
Free Kittens For All (Serious)
"I'll make a silly horror game with literal cats as the enemies. Not demon cats or zombie cats. Just cats."
The goal was to pitch a demo to different companies and hope they would see some potential in the USP (Unique Selling Point). Buuut... I lost faith after a few rejections, and decided to complete the game myself.
From conceptualization (jotting down notes) to actualization (version 0.9), Kittens Of Fear took about 5 months and a budget of somewhere around $350. However, with zero marketing plus the game having placeholder graphics, it didn't sell well at all.
I don't consider this endeavor a failure.
A failure would be 5 ***years*** of development time, and a total budget north of $350 ***thousand***. . . and then it flops.
This was a learning experience... as well as something to help pad my tech resume / CV 😀 And so, that's what this game will be from now on.
Changes From 0.9 to 0.9.1
Some game play tweaks were made in December 2021 and January 2022. Here's a select few:
- Deleted the Cultist Room's northeast "Voices of the Damned" speed reduction. There was a bug that permanently slowed down the player... and I couldn't reproduce the bug. That section was already too hard (nothing but Shadow Cats), so no more speed penalty.
- Made the Cave stage much smaller—by about a third. It was too much walking / a Walking Simulator.
- The blinking phantom cats were tossed. They could Game Over you, didn't make a sound when nearby, and were hard to see. Just a bad enemy design overall. (There's still one in the Forest stage, but it can't reach you.)
- The Ghost Cat / Cop Cat has the same chase speed regardless of difficulty.
- The Shadow Cats were slowed down a bit. It makes a "No Flashlight" run a lot easier.
(Fun Fact: I never made a change log. Real professional stuff right here.)
And Lastly...
If you actually bought this stupid game, please refund it at Steam. I don't know how that works so hit up the help pages or something. Keep yo' money.
A lot of the game will remain unfinished. For example, the score tally could use some work in balancing between loot taken and stage clear time. But at this point I'm kinda sick of tinkering with variables...
Special thanks to the reviewers who gave me much-needed feedback when it was still in Early Access. The game was a hot mess back then. (I didn't even "catch the mouse" on a first-person game! 😲 Total newbie mistakes, really.)
Not sure if this will be my last attempt at game dev, or the last attempt until like 2030. Whatever.
F E A R
Attributions
[tabby cat] https://www.pexels.com/photo/adorable-animal-baby-cat-290164/
[logs] https://www.pexels.com/photo/wooden-logs-prepared-for-production-of-lumber-3750777/
End of Year, End of Game
Game dev is hard; solo game dev is hell. I'm not doing this again for quite some time.
Thanks to all who gave Early Access feedback, which saved the game from becoming a complete fiasco. And...
[bg pic sauce]
BREAKING: Evil Developer KILLS UNICORNS, Makes Game Impossible
It didn't go well.
But you know what? That e-kick to the rear was exactly what I needed. None of the criticisms were wrong. I knew I had developer blindness, but I didn't know I was *that* blind.
So... Here comes version 0.4.3!
NO MORE UNICORN HORNS
For about 3 months now, I've been haunted by this weird graphical bug in the cat models.
Holy Jesus... What is that? What the f*&# is that?! ~Gunnery Sergeant Hartman
That kitten has an issue with its forehead. ~Flamez
The culprit? Deletion of the cat model's eyes, because I wanted a certain "hollow" look to their eyes. But if I have to choose between all-black cats or some eldritch horn comin' outta their heads, it's an easy choice.
No "Speedy Oil Change" Stages
Inappropriate for this game.
Before this update, you could clear a stage in literally 2 seconds if you were lucky enough. Take a loot item, dash to the exit, and that's it. No exploring necessary.
Now, you need to find a Stage Key as well as 2 loot items instead of 1.
The worst part about this is, I actually thought of a Stage Key or Stage Loot during early development, but was like "nah, that'll be too hard for the player." I ended up with something way too easy.
Revamped Tutorial
One of the streamers who played KoF kept dying from the Moth cat. He didn't know that if you turn your flashlight off, it can't hurt you (unless it's Fear Mode).
It meant I failed at my mission for this game: you know exactly what kinds of enemies you're up against, but you still get spooked (and Game Over'd).
The revamped tutorial covers all enemies, including the fake cats that exist just to screw with your mind.
Power-Up and Dark Sphere Info
Another huge complaint was power-ups and Dark Spheres (the "trap or treasure?" feature) not working.
It did work... but the game told you nothing if you already had that power-up active or available.
Here's how it goes now:
Miscellaneous QOL
More updates in the latest release:
- A few of the cats got sped up and/or have longer ranges of vision. Overall, the game was too easy, so I beefed up the enemies.
- Cursor lock for the mouse. howdidiskipthis.jpg
- Subtitles for Classic Mode and Fear Mode intros.
- Quick Play stages are numbered so you know what order they're in. And the Dev stage says "BEAT CLASSIC MODE TO UNLOCK" instead of "N/A."
- Added some data on the pause menu. Now you can see total items collected, threat level, and whether or not you took the Stage Key.
- Adjusted sounds in the tutorial stages. Some of the cats were too loud.
- Lowered the "got a power-up" volume.
- New background for the Lore section.
- Victory Logs are by current locale time instead of Coordinated Universal Time.
What now?
I will continue to tweak things a bit further... but what I want is the game to not look like mud.
If you've read this far, consider checking out my Indiegogo campaign. Pretty much the only thing I really need help on is graphics.
Thanks for reading, and thanks for your feedback!
~gitb