Devlog #3 - Cat-aloguing Our Design

The vastness of the Winter 2025 semester devours us. Purrfect Shot, a game originally called Cat Island, continues rapidly through the design pipeline, with the broad-strokes outline of the game's design in the final stages of authorship. The game has cameras, cats, a level, and a better-established game loop. Following Tuesday's design presentation, we have answered some of the most key design questions: the world has a more established layout, the aesthetics and visuals of the game are coming into clearer shape, and the details of the moment-to-moment player experience become clearer with each day of production.

A commonly offered piece of wisdom to new game developers is to begin playtesting as early as possible. As such, we are beginning playtesting on a very early build of the game this coming week. The feedback from course staff and visiting guests has been incredible, but there is only so much one can learn from slide decks and creative briefs. We believe that by devoting effort to creating an early, private pre-alpha build, we will learn insights about questions like player incentives and UI feedback that would have been missed otherwise.

There is something quite grounding about seeing the first bespoke texture become implemented into the functional prototype. The intersection of design, programming, art, and audio into even the crudest version of Purrfect Shot makes our weeks of effort feel much more real. We are a long way from our vision becoming reality, but each week brings us a step closer.

Completed in Week 5:

Programming

• ✅COMPLETED Proof of concept demo
• ✅COMPLETED Integration of textures and audio assets
• ✅COMPLETED Overall level design, version 1
• ➡️STARTED In-editor construction of level
• ➡️STARTED Improving cat movement

Art

• ✅COMPLETED 3 cat animations
• ✅COMPLETED More environmental prop textures and models
• ✅COMPLETED Design of all cat breeds
• ✅COMPLETED Player character models (hand, camera, etc.)
  
• ➡️STARTED New cat model testing
• ➡️STARTED Individual cat design (crowdsourced from dev team cats!)
  

Audio

• ➡️STARTED Dynamic music design

Objectives for Week 6:

Programming

• Create a mock-up and rapidly testable level
• Begin playtesting in a very early pre-alpha build
• Design of toys and their effects

Art

• Finish cat animations and textures

Audio

• Make demos of ambient sound
• Create an FMOD prototype of dynamic audio