Cats vs. Aliens Caturday Update #1
Hello and welcome, Invaders!
In an effort to keep all of you fine folk inside the loopiest loop that is progress on this game, I'm going to start doing these Update Caturday posts. My goal here is mainly to provide some insight into wtf I've been doing while you're not seeing that glorious update button on Cats vs Aliens when you launch Steam.
I PROMISE, I AM WORKING!
*ahem*
So here's the dealio, Joe: I get four two-hours blocks a week to work on this and I try to squeeze in as much extra as I can, but life seems to keep on lifeing, as it does, so things feel very... very..... very....... slow.
Anyway, without fur-ther ado (or whinging), let's talk deets.
Cats vs Aliens is on track to release an actual Steam Demo in Q1 of next year – as of right now. Because I'm a solodeveloper, though, this goal is very much in a wibbly wobbley timey wimey space regarding set-in-stone-ness. The vast majority of the core mechanics are in and working, but every bug is a ??? amount of time not moving forward.
BUT, here's a list of what's done so far:
- First 5 playable characters
- First 3 biomes
- Quest system and progression
- Dialogue system
- Building system
- Loot system
- Harvesting of resources
- Autocombat
- Enemy wave system
- Safe zones
- First 9 unlocks
- First 6 upgrades (3 weapons, 3 passives)
- Level up system
- Crafting
- Infinitely wrapping game world
- Controller support
- KB/M support
- Saving and loading (yes, I included this, it was a huge PITA to get working properly)
- SteamInput integration (another huge PITA, but working GREAT now, if I do say so myself)
- Some SFX and Shaders
And here's a list of what still needs to be added:
- Random events
- Boss enemies
- Temporary buffs
- Progress tracking menu
- Steam Achievements
- More SFX & Shaders
So that's the current state of the game. As you can see, a lot of progress has been made and there is more to come.
Want to help?
Aww, look at you being such a pawsomely helpful person! You can get involved by participating in the playtest and leaving feedback on the Steam forums. Poke through it, try to break it, and then tell me all of the ways I am failing so I can make Cats vs Aliens the best possible game it can be.
I deeply appreciate any and all feedback (especially yours!) and would love to hear more about your thoughts on this game because it keeps me going through all of the long debugging sessions and sluggardly progress. I want to make this game as much as (if not more than) you want it to be done, so let's cross that finish line together!
Do you like this type of update?
Yeah? Great! No? Well, I'm honestly just impressed you read this much of something you weren't enjoying.
In either case, this update is more for me to keep myself accountable and review the work I've done in the scant few hours a week I have to dedicate to this project. Expect more in the future, and thanks for reading!