PuffyCats by Iacopo

(Play fullscreen for a better experience)
Help feed your fellow kittens by shooting bouncy pufferfish at them!
Each furry friend has a unique color preference, so aim carefully to match their appetite.
Score points with each successful delivery, or by throwing pufferfish at pesky seagulls.
But beware: some pufferfish have special abilities that can either help or hinder your mission.
Keep an eye on the leaderboard to see if you can reach the top 5 Puffy Cats!
COMMANDS:
-A or D to move your cat.
-Left mouse click to choose arrow strength and then release to shoot.
-ESC or SPACE to open the pause menu from which you can check the leaderboard.
Note: If you don't see the updated leaderboard after submitting your score at the end of the game, simply start a new game and check the leaderboard from the pause menu. It should be updated by then.
TEAM MEMBERS:
-itsLizzyArt - Art
-icyyw - Sounds
-Iacopo - Game Design and Programming
-MicheleLeva - Game Design and Programming
Thank you for checking out our game, we hope you had fun! Feel free to leave a comment! :)
| Link | https://regoli.itch.io/ludumdare53 |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/53/puffycats |
Ratings
| Overall | 390th | 3.75⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 452th | 3.575⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 328th | 3.65⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 838th | 3.625⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 111th | 4.45⭐ | 22🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 252th | 3.778⭐ | 20🧑⚖️ |
| Humor | 334th | 3.5⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 662th | 3.447⭐ | 21🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 11🗳️ | 8🗨️ |
Love the graphics and everything and loved playing the game. Even though it made me sad to see some cats go unfed :(
One of the best games I have seen in this jam :)
@iqoribou There are a lot of unexplored design paths we can take, we might indeed redesign a bit the gameplay after the jam. We went the "mayhem" path since a complete redesign would have taken too long.
if it's not too much to ask, during your playtest did you come up with some interesting ways that could rework the gameplay? (even completely!)
@manogugas I personally agree with the readability issue, and it was a mistake on my side to overlook it a bit in the design phase. I apologize if it has compromised the fun of the game D: I hope you still had fun though
@philocode We are sad too that the cats went unfed, we nearly changed the whole winning conditions to a game where you had to feed N cats as fast as you can to win. A time attack game. Maybe it would have been a better choice? Who knows, we might prototype it! Thank you for your love :D
@bezedh Thank you, noted, the audio effect will be equalized or changed with something more subtle (post-jam) I hope you and your mouse stick around for more :)
@misterkeefe @connorgrail Thank you both for your kind words :D Do you have any suggestions?
@thomas-bringer Thanks, it took a lot of caffeine to implement the leaderboard xD We're glad you enjoyed it.
@blueanoli We love cats too. We serve cats. As it should be. (No cat is threatening me while I'm writing this)
@diamyn-v Thanks! We have loads of SFX for this game in our assets, we had to remove some because it was too chaotic xD But we'll try the best of our ability to add more in the future
@dk5000p Thank you very much, we're very happy that you had a good time and we apologize for the leaderboard issue, if restarting the game does not show it you can message me and I will add your score on the server ( this could be your ticket to the first spot xD )
Good luck!
It was definitely a bit tricky to get a hang of, I'm not sure if I ever did. I really like the concept, but I started to get a bit frustrated because I felt like I couldn't reliably hit anything. I think this is mainly because of the lamp and those darn seagulls. I don't think it's a bad idea to involve those as obstacles to increase the difficulty, but perhaps a bit intense to throw those in from the start.
The aiming mechanic is interesting enough, especially with those puffers bouncing around, I think those together are a tricky-but-satisfying challenge. The gulls being moving obstacles doesn't really gel with that dynamic, in my opinion—typically with moving obstacles, you want to skillfully wait for an opening, but when the puffers you're aiming at are franticly wiggling about, the player has to calculate more variables at an unfeasible speed, so at least for myself, I ended up just aiming and praying.
I'd be curious to play a version of this that lets the player get some practice without those to start, I really like the concept and theming, and overall really enjoyed this game!