This frickin’ cat made itself a slingshot
How we doing public transit takers?
Mobile games on the go make time fly by, and that’s exactly what happened to me when I tried out CatCrash at Pax East. Let me preface this with the fact that I do not like mobile games. I think Jcup may have swayed me though, because this game was F U N. I didn’t leave the demo until I finished it.
Jcup is here to talk about the fantastic feline and how the game came to be!
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Hey Jcup, share a little bit about yourself and how you found yourself beginning the journey of development.
I stumbled upon, game maker as a teenager and fell in love. I started with simple games and never really finished much, but it really taught me how to program. Eventually I found StarCraft and Warcraft games/editor as another means of making games. While it taught less about programming it was still insightful on level design and how a game should be organized. Until college I tried learning other languages, not getting far. In college I took an actionscript class and found it really cool for game dev since you didn't need to download the game to play. I dropped from college when I got an offer to QA for a software company but I used what I learned in that class to make several newgrounds flash games, Magnify (burning ants mini game), Tank Tactics(destructible world top down shooter), Grim Shores(zombie platformer), and Bit Coasters(theme park sim). Later on I picked up unity as flash was dead and enjoyed it after a little bit of toying with it.
How was your experience working for a development company, GameCloud Studios, vs. developing on your own?
In gamecloud studios, it was my first official programming job. I showed them my magnify and tank tactics games to prove I could do it. The studio worked on kiosk game software, sport games, and various other projects to fund the studio. While I learned a lot and really enjoyed working with everyone there, the interest in the types of projects I was on was a little anticlimactic. After around a year I took an offer from a previous employer from a non gaming studio to actually go back into qa with the promise of a path to go back into dev for more money.
Development is not a short task by any means, how do you find the time to work on your game between work, life, gaming, and everything else?
My trick is I have no life lol. Well kinda, as I got older I learned if you wake up early enough you get some quiet hours in before the normal day. Depending on how much is going on I try to wake up between 4-5am everyday. I have a fortunate work schedule where my work day doesn’t start till 12-1pm. I usually work up to that time on my game and just switch over. Then try and sleep around 9pm.
Typically when people hear “mobile games”, they don’t classify it as a real game. How does CatCrash break that stigma?
It is something I battle for sure. Some people expect an extremely casual game as they come and try it. Especially since the game type is kind of unique the closest thing people connect it to is angry birds, while it is inspired by it doesn’t play like angry birds. But my plan is to treat it like a real game, it has a story, it innovates on platforming, and isn’t just the same thing each level.
I played this game at Pax East after Adam Robot mentioned you in one of our past interviews. I made it my mission to seek you out at the convention. I loved playing the demo you had on display. After beating the boss showcased in the demo, I wanted more. What future plans do you have for the content of this game?
Thanks! it was awesome to have you try it, kind of crazy timing how that all worked out. So yeah the demo had 5 levels which the first 3 really have to teach you how to get comfortable with the game type. Levels 4-5 start to push your understanding and it only gets more intense after that as I can turn up the difficulty. The levels generally will have a theme, like chase, hunt, climb, boss, collect, or destroy. The later levels change scenery to follow the story but keep these themes in mind all while pushing the difficulty further. As another note I hope to add some infinite challenge mode to the game but that will probably come to the game after initial release.
What are your favorite and least favorite parts of CatCrash?
So CatCrash’s movement mechanic is kind of a double edged sword, it is unique to my knowledge but that can push some people away as it has a slight learning curve. But that movement mechanic is my favorite part of the game. It allows for so many different maneuvers and allows my game to have a wide range of levels and challenges. So my least favorite part is that it can push people away. But I understand not everyone likes to play every type of game. In regards to that though, in recent days I have been toying with the alt method of controls, and to my surprise it actually makes PC play really natural so it may open the door for that in the future.
Obviously you attended Pax East, as we mentioned. Out of all the conventions you have attended, what is the strangest experience you’ve had at one?
Pax East was actually the first as an exhibitor. Regarding strange experiences though, it was actually really smooth, but a stand out experience was something related to the previous question, where a woman with her boyfriend/husband decided to try the game and quickly realized it wasn’t a game for her as her partner was trying to help her through it, she was a bit frustrated with it so they switched and the partner got really far and by the end he was like well I really liked it.
Here is your time to PLUG! Tell everyone what you have been working on and what they should be checking out.
So CatCrash will be coming to android and IOS by the end of the year. The game really is a different take on mobile games, inspired by Angry Birds, Rayman Legends, it is a platformer/climber/CATapulting adventure. Follow social media for updates.
Rapid Fire Round:
Are socks and sandals allowed? Sure, hide yo nasty toes!
What is your guilty pleasure? Video games when I should be working!
What is your experience with Oldschool Runescape? I used to spend hours punching cows to increase my strength
What is another Indie game worth checking out? So many I'm gonna say a few that I have tried out recently from the indie dev communities: Aethernaut, Tarot: Theo's Quest, “Neko Ghost, Jump!”, and Brooke Vs. World Doom. Go check em out!
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