Catocalypse by Neshtyak

About Catocalypse
The witch Aerys was working on a potion and her cat fell into the vat. The cat's fur getting into the potion was the beginning of the inevitable...
Mutant cats begin to crawl out of the vat, seeking to explore the environment and thus destroying the Witch's house.
How long can Aerys delay the house's inevitable destruction?
In order to prevent damage, you need to:
Stop cats for a while by enticing them with a toy or using some kind of counteraction
Repair broken things, which will replenish the condition of the house a little
Target:
Last as long as possible!
This house will not save anything from the invasion of mutant cats ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Controls
WASD or left click - Move
Key "1" - Imprison in a flask ability
Key "2" - Bubble encapsulation ability
Key "3" - Water spray ability
Key "4" - Toy ability
Key "E" - Item repair ability
Developers:
- Neshitova Anna (@neshtyak) - lead, gamedesigner, animations
- Zyz Nikita (@nikaz) - programmer
- Danishevsky Ilya (@mrscom) - assembly in Unity
- Mikhaltsov Timofey (@ghostofsheriff) - art
- Nikulina Kristina (@yurain33) - art
- Music band "марк грейвз"
Check out марк грейвз!

| Link | https://neshtyak.itch.io/catocalypse |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/50/catocalypse |
Ratings
| Overall | 900th | 3.378⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 1094th | 2.974⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 727th | 3.276⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 420th | 3.882⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 232th | 4.218⭐ | 41🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 481th | 3.486⭐ | 39🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 292th | 3.697⭐ | 40🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 714th | 3.458⭐ | 38🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 94🗳️ | 44🗨️ |
I found it a bit confusing how tog et the abilities to actually work, I often found myself pressing them and nothing would happen. I was probably missing something, but the feedback there could be better.
some audio feedback when interacting with the cats and furniture would help a lot, but overall it was pretty fun, also, cute cats
The process of targeting a cat and having to close in on it before activating the ability is a bit awkward overall but it's so cute!
I don't think I was able to repair anything. Is there a way to repair broken furniture, or can you only repair things before they break? I was mostly trying to figure out what spell works best for each cat. I think it would've been cool if each cat showed an emoticon after applying a spell to them.
About furniture, yeah, you can repair things before they break completely. Well, the destruction is inevitable
The cats broke out of their little trap so fast though! It made gameplay a little repetitive
Good entry :)
Overall good game, fun to play.
Other than that, nice entry.
"Mutant cats begin to crawl out of the vat, seeking to explore the environment and thus destroying the Witch’s house."
-> I'm sorry, this is a problem how? So this is a simulator of my real life?
All kidding aside - I LOVED THIS!!! The kitties were so so so cute, haha.
I think my favourite reaction was bubbleing the pokemon cat - right after bubbleing the skyrim cat (why skyrim cat? They kinda remind me of atronachs ^^)
Oh god this was so adoreably cute, it almost gave me a heart attack! Also, bonus points for the cutscene, soo soso cute omg!
Gameplay was fun, I really liked the use of this rock paper scissor element -
also while looking at the tutorial I thought - gosh, I hope the respective shortcuts and what they mean are always shown in the UI and they are - good job guys!
I was kind of too dumb to repair though - do I have to buttonsmash or hold? it didn't work most of the time for me :(
If you do a postjam version, I would balance the cooldown a little bit, and make it skill based, because if there are 3 water cats and I can only use the test tube once ever couple seconds thats a bummer - maybe a penality whenever I use an ability wrong? so like, cooldown according to what I chose?
Or after having clicked at a cat I need to choose the ability in a certain timeframe ot get rewards - or penalties when I take to long?
In any case, amazing game and content for a gamejam - good job, guys!
The style is also lovely and kudos for including the well done opening cinematic, was watching it with a smile on my face! c:
The game itself felt weird to control however. At first, the button prompts didn't seem to work at all. I found out later what I was doing wrong, but it was really unintuitive.
Despite of that, I still managed to have some good fun. Good job people! :)
Presentation is very good, however I feel that the game could be more clear on how you're supposed to play it. Is the player supposed to memorize the stuff in the tutorial, or am I missing something? Because in that case I feel like it would make for a more intuitive experience to show that information via gameplay (maybe by cut and pasting the pictograms in the tutorial screen into the game, e.g. as posters on the wall so you can always see them).
Also the music is cool and well made, but doesn't really fit the mood and aesthetic of the game.
Overall though, a really well made and well put together game, and a fun but simple concept. I just wish it was a bit more intuitive to play.
My only note for improvement is that the game can go on forever because of how easy it is to repair and defend the final object. Maybe making it so the game is over when there's only one object left instead of zero left could fix this issue.