Lunchtime, a Zoom recorder and the two of us: Phil and Ed are back, and this time we’re not talking about Augment Me.
We’re talking about its small, furry, very fast cousin, Pretty Kitty Gone, a pixel-art game we’re aiming to put on Steam for Christmas.
The pitch is simple. Simon has promised his girlfriend Lauren he’ll look after her cat, Pretty Kitty, while she visits her mum in hospital. Once Lauren’s taxi pulls away, Pretty Kitty bolts into the haunted graveyard next door. Simon can’t fight. He can only run, dodge and sneak. His job is to get the cat back before the skeletons, ghosts and bats get him.
It could be called Catch the Cat, Avoid the Bat, but that’s too long of a title, so we went with Pretty Kitty Gone.
Phil
A safe horror game for kids
We’re making this one for younger players. Edwin’s son Charlie has been our chief playtester, and he’s the one we keep in mind. That means no gore and nothing too extreme. Phil put it best: “It’s light horror, light romance, and you’re looking for a cat.” Older players still get a challenge, because the cat doesn’t want to be caught, and she has some opinions about how you approach her.
To tune that difficulty, the game records telemetry: where Simon walks, where the action piles up, and where he keeps dying. That data goes into a CSV file, so after each playtest we can see where the game is too hard and where it’s too easy. In some early runs Charlie caught the cat too quickly. In others, about five minutes of play before the catch felt right.
From Halloween edition to Christmas
The original plan was a Halloween release. Then we learned that a new game on Steam has a waiting period of about three weeks before it can go live. So the Halloween edition became the Christmas edition. Pumpkins are making way for Christmas trees and snowmen, and the graveyard is getting some festive lighting. There was also a fair point about the visibility:
I actually think the game needs a little bit more light, and I don’t mean emotionally.
Phil
So Christmas lights it is. They fit the season, and they also mean you can see what’s about to eat you.
Greensleeves, but fast
The soundtrack is chiptune, built from classical pieces old enough to be free of royalties. We ruled out the Funeral March because it’s too obviously a funeral. The winner is Greensleeves: the ice-cream-van tune, often wrongly credited to Henry VIII, and a piece we both learned on piano as kids. The plan is a slow, romantic version over the intro while Simon and Lauren stroll along, then a fast version for the chase.
A ginger cat in the graveyard
Pretty Kitty started out as a Sphynx cat. The art asset was drawn for 16-pixel graphics, though, and the game runs at 32, so she was too small to see. She’s now an orange tabby, because who doesn’t love an orange tabby? She’s still a bit too fast, which is on the to-do list.
She also keeps running off the screen, so something has to show you which way she went. Right now that’s a floating paw, which looks cute but doesn’t point anywhere. We’ve also discussed a small pink arrow and a paw with a bit of cat arm attached (yes, really). Edwin’s rule is that the pointer has to be small: “Once you see it, you get it.”
The intro cutscene is done too. Phil wrote the dialogue, Lauren’s lines are voiced, and Simon’s are next. You can skip it from your second play onwards.
Part 2: the long lunch
We kept the recorder running, and dessert turned into nearly an hour of tangents. Edwin remembers the penny arcade at New Brighton, across the Mersey from Liverpool. One mechanical submarine game there had you look through a periscope and launch a red-lit “missile” that clunked along a track towards a pop-up boat. Phil makes the case that the ideas behind games hardly change, and only the hardware does. We also cover Charlie’s Stumble Guys victory dances and how many sleeps are left until Christmas. Fair warning: Part 2 wanders a long way from cats.
Lunch ratings
- Phil, beef fried rice: 8/10
- Edwin, wonton noodle soup: 7/10
- Phil, chicken satay sticks with steamed rice: 8.5/10
- Edwin, chicken chow mein: 7–7.5/10
As promised:
“Meshes of the Afternoon”
We said we’d embed it, so here it is: Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid’s 1943 short, which, as Phil points out, Edwin brings up a lot. We’re very much like Meshes of the Afternoon. Unlike Pretty Kitty, we’re right here.
Pretty Kitty Gone is coming to Steam this Christmas. You’ll never be able to forget Pretty Kitty once she’s gone.
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