pawborough - Tumblr blog

[pawborough]

Art Update

We recently posted a few asset WIPs!

A work in progress sketch for an accessory set called the "Sweetheart Set." Sketch by Remmie!

Two wing designs for the Moontail breed, featuring the silk and ribbon variants for the Tuxedo pattern!

[pawborough]

Hello everyone! 

First off, apologies for the later update this month! 

The truth is that the software developers were on a slow bend this month. A majority of time was spent on theoretical economy balancing and item number crunching. While this is important work for the long term, there’s not much to show for it aside from spreadsheet numbers. We’re now back in full swing!

Originally, we wanted to wait to update the demo with Longhairs before releasing a check in. You all deserve some substantial content. 

However, the devs reported that they were not going to be able to do this until next week. Hearing this, we didn't want to continue the wait after that!

That all being said, Longhairs and Cheeks/Lollipop are coming this month, full promise! The art has all been ready, we just had some technical kinks to buff out!

Moontails are next up with the majority of their patterns done. The breed currently needs 3 more patterns illustrated. Moontail wing color-picking has also been a mighty task that is nearing completion! Check out a few wing color previews: 

We expect Moontails to be up soon after Longhairs. 

We have in the meantime begun concurrent production on illustrating Thumpers, with Fyrets and Bovines close behind. 

This update, we will majority talk about what concrete expectations you as a follower can have for our timeline! 

Let's look at some art first! 

New Fauna

Nautitum 

This aquatic fella saves snacks for later in his belly!

New Accessories

We have completed a backer accessory!

Firefly Chime

The illustration of the Firefly Chime was a great experiment for us, as we worked with a copy-past-able asset and still positioned it in unique ways. 

With these two, we were able to test our pipeline for different types of accessories. The Firefly Chime was finished in record time, and we believe that we can illustrate quite a few simple accessories. 

This is all very exciting for our catalog! 

Guild UI

With this screenshot, we see how roll for outcome scenarios are played out!

We want to talk about our expectations for the future! 

Our goal for a dedicated alpha is to have a test of about 100 concurrent users run for two weeks straight. This is to stress test the servers and weed out apparent bugs. We already have many playable states, but this test would mark a tangible transition to beta. 

After which, we will move to beta to test things like number balancing, item drop rates, and general mechanic feedback. Beta is planned to run for several months while we iron the kinks. 

So what should you expect? 

Our original plan was for alpha to remain strictly internal and invite only. We wanted testers to understand that this would be a rather laborious volunteer job with less fun, more QA. However, we have been shown by the sheer dedication and passion in our supporters that some of you would want nothing more! 

So, we're opening alpha applications! 

Alpha Applications

Alpha will be a two week long test with an average of 100 users. 

We must stress that this is a volunteer job with more expectations than beta. You will be given a checklist of functions to test and buttons to click daily, and be expected to report any bugs or lack thereof each time. All alpha testers will be compensated for their time and energy with an exclusive fauna. (As mentioned before, exclusive Fauna will not be counted for Faunapedia completion rewards.) 

Compatible volunteers will be chosen at random from our application. 

Sign up here! 

Applications will close upon announcement. We will make an announcement of a closure date one week before they officially close!

Timeline

We are planning to have alpha up and running within 30-60 days from now.

Closed beta will begin 3 weeks after alpha. 

From there, we plan to open our doors for people without beta keys during registration periods. This will be "open beta." 

Projection for this is August of 2024. 

This asset will be pinned to all our social media. 

While we've had general estimations before now based on different factors, this is our first promise of an established expectation. We had a lot of learning curves, personal setbacks, and growing pains as a team, but we've ironed out much of the kinks seen in our early development. August has been a consistent goal of ours for opening registrations from the beginning, and we're now finally comfortable enough to announce it. 

We are still hesitant to announce dates at this time, as frankly anything can happen and we're loath to have users wait months for a date only to be disappointed by a push to the next week, but this is what our team is expecting and projecting. 

Dates will be announced when they are within 2 weeks time! This will give us a tight enough window to accurately predict when the game will be ready, and ensure there aren’t last minute pushes. It will also give users time to prepare for grabbing early registrations. 

From open beta, we'll be working to transition into a formidable game. All our focus will be on readying content and making sure our mechanics are balanced. This ballpark is dependent on a number of factors, so we'll need to update as we transition into Phase 4! 

One more note for users to expect: Throughout alpha and beta, there may be placeholder assets for smaller things such as food icons or items. These will be visually indicated as placeholders. 

The intention for these game states will be to make sure our software runs as smoothly as possible, the economy is balanced, and the game is fun to play. Our program will not be "launched" until all assets are final, but it will speed our development to both test and produce at the same time! 

Our artists during this phase of development are all freelancers, and their availability is largely dependent on outside factors. We must remain vigilant to this fact while we plan out our timeline, and we appreciate everyone's support and patience!

We realize this update has less content than previous updates, but a large amount of our manpower at this moment is going towards monotonous things such as repeat pattern illustrations, repeat accessory illustrations, and refinement of mechanics already featured.

Thank you to all our supporters who have stuck by us while we continued development and faced new challenges! It's a huge step for us to be at this stage, and we're all very excited!

To Summarize: We showed a new fauna, new backer accessory, guild UI development, and opened applications for 2-week dedicated alpha testing. 

What to expect next month: Further asset and UI development, peaks into alpha gameplay and dedicated game loops. 

[pawborough]

Howdy everyone!

Happy Valentine's day folks! We have the long awaited contest results in this update, as well as some small updates to fauna, and a new system for accessories.

Contest Winner

We previously held a sweepstakes to win a Design An Accessory Tier (1st place) and Monarch Tier (2nd place) and we can now announce the winners!

(We want to apologize for the low quality of the video; we wanted to crop out the advertisements on the website we used)

Over 580 people entered! 

Congratulations to our winners Emma and Erika!

Thank you to everyone who entered!

Fauna Updates

As previously seen with the Featherbeau, Kintsune, and Javasqueak, we have been updating all the fauna art to match the new style overhaul.

Here is a comparison to the old artwork.

Toshi has very minimal changes. There are some minor color and shadow touch-ups, but as this was our most in-style original fauna, very little change was necessary.

Here is the new and old art.

Like the Featherbeau and Kintsune, the Phantowl has a full overhaul. With a more dynamic pose and better detail, we hope to invoke spookiness in the new design.

The new and old designs are below.

Accessories + Dye system 

Speaking of designing accessories, we've finally begun production on our accessories! Here is a preview of what we are working on, showing illustrations of the original Gilded Helm and Iridescent Trail!

Our focus is on adapting challenging items. For example, the Helm, and similar helmet items, provide unique challenges when on fluffy breeds. 

Here are a few previews of our solutions so far:

And here is a preview of our first backer-sponsored design!

Lastly, we’re very excited to announce a system we've been workshopping. 

Accessory dyes! 

PawBorough is built by the players, and it is in our interest as players to have as much quality customizability as possible. We want expansive options! All the recolors!

Accessory dyes will allow users to craft any accessory on the site into a different color. 

The system we are designing incorporates “standard” and “special” dyes. 

Standard dyes are a set number of colors which will be compatible with all accessories, meaning all accessory items get a blanket number of recolors. 

“Special” dyes will only be compatible with certain items, and will include alternative colorings such as rainbow, pastel colors, gradients, patterns, etc! 

The benefit of such a system means all items will get a set number of varieties, and it lets us expand upon certain pieces to include alternative or unique colorings. But it doesn’t commit us to an undoable recolor demand. 

We’re still working out the kinks and pain points, such as easy to see information on what takes a special dye and what doesn’t, but we hope this will prevent item bloat, give users more creative control, and overall improve the gameplay! 

Site Themes 

We’ve started workshopping the Borough themes with our completed assets. Take a look at these previews! 

Zenith 

Luna

Pawprints

Next let’s look at a cute feature we have on the backburner. 

Ever imagine your cat has polydactyly? While we can’t break lineart, we do have a fun new feature for rare cat collectors. Every cat will have their very own paw print on their profile, with a very very small chance of having a sixth toe!

There are 55 unique pawprints!

Have fun trying for cats with silly paws ~

Stonehide texture

We’ve upgraded our asset technology! The rainbow sheen seen here on the scales of the Stonehide was a breakthrough in our coloring limitations. This texture will be applied to mystic breeds in the future and bring further quality to our assets!

Great stuff! 

On the backend, we've not done many notable new things this month, but we're continuing through as we prepare for a dedicated alpha. Longhairs were stuck with file processing complications, but we're working them out and working in tandem!

Speaking of alpha, we're looking at opening free applications for alpha and transitioning from solely an internal to a semi-external volunteer test. More information on this as we grow closer. 

To Summarize: We showed updated Beta, Toshi, Phantowl and accessory assets, the dying system, two new site themes, a cute pawprint feature, and a new texture for mystic breeds.

What to expect next month: Further accessory assets, potential alpha update, and asset and software updates.

Note for Tumblr users: Something went wrong on our end, and while this update got posted to Kickstarter, it somehow did not got posted to Tumblr. We have re-uploaded it now for proper record keeping. Our sincerest apologies.

[pawborough]

Hey all!

First off, I want to disclose with full transparency that I’ve had a pretty severe case of “long Covid” for the better part of a month with a co-morbid case of bronchitis and a general throat infection. This put a lot of things out of whack and I do apologize. I got hit with the "tri-power beam." 

Without getting into the weeds on details, I had three scary hospital visits and a bedbound holidays, which greatly impacted my ability to work with the team and did set us back. I’ve since mostly recovered, but I still have a nasty cough, a general wheeze, and cannot use my full voice. I believe this may unfortunately end up impacting my breathing for the rest of my life, but hey I'm still kicking! 

Please stay safe, sanitary, and wear protection around other people.  

Full disclosure! This also impacted my ability to address this earlier, and to give updates, but after recovering I took some time to speak with people and conduct research. 

After speaking with experts, we’ve decided that our best course of action is to refund all previous raffle tickets and instead conduct the contest as a free sweepstakes!

There seemed to be conflicting information on our best steps forward, and at times we had experts who gave us conflicting advice or weren't certain, so we decided it was best to not base any further action on uncertain information. 

What does that mean for you? If you previously purchased a ticket, you will be refunded within 24 hours. If anyone attempts to purchase tickets, they will immediately be refunded and given a note to the sweepstakes. 

Overall, we do apologize for this flip which we are at fault for. My sickness in general made it more difficult to tend to these things earlier and I realize that is quite inconvenient. Thank you so much for your patience. 

Onto the re-host!

Prizes

For 1st place, the winner will get everything included in the Design an Accessory tier!  Valued $600 at time of purchase

This reward comes with all of the unlimited tiers available on our Kickstarter IN ADDITION to an Early Bird key! All of which includes the following: 

X1 Early Bird beta key 

X1 Beta key

X2 Luna Stones 

X1 Beta (fauna)

X1 Phantowl (fauna)

X1 Toshi (fauna)

X1 Featherbeau (fauna)

X1 Kitsugi (fauna)

X1 Protogear (accessory)

X1 Creeping Thicket (accessory)

X1 Necromantic Cloak (accessory)

X1 Iridescent Trail (accessory) X1 Gilded Helm (accessory)

X1 Sacred Scepter (accessory)

X1 Electra Crest (profile decoration)

X1 Orchard Crest (profile decoration)

X1 Angelic Crest (profile decoration)

X1 Demonic Crest (profile decoration)

X1 Opalescent Fountains (backdrop)

X1 Onyx Composites (backdrop)

X1 Moonstone pool (decor)

X1 Obsidian Sentry (decor) 

In addition, this reward provides the opportunity to design an accessory* which will be available onsite at launch! The winner will receive x10 copies of their accessory, as well as their name credited in the flavor text. 

*As explained in our campaign: this is a collaboration with our art team, meaning the final design illustration will be at the discretion of our team, and revisions from the winner will be limited. 

For 2nd place, the winner will receive a Monarch Bundle!  Valued 80$ at time of purchase

This reward comes with all of the unlimited tiers available on our Kickstarter which includes the following: 

X2 Beta keys

X2 Luna Stones 

X1 Beta (fauna)

X1 Phantowl (fauna)

X1 Toshi (fauna)

X1 Featherbeau (fauna)

X1 Kitsugi (fauna)

X1 Protogear (accessory)

X1 Creeping Thicket (accessory)

X1 Necromantic Cloak (accessory)

X1 Iridescent Trail (accessory) X1 Gilded Helm (accessory)

X1 Sacred Scepter (accessory)

X1 Electra Crest (profile decoration)

X1 Orchard Crest (profile decoration)

X1 Angelic Crest (profile decoration)

X1 Demonic Crest (profile decoration)

X1 Opalescent Fountains (backdrop)

X1 Onyx Composites (backdrop)

X1 Moonstone pool (decor)

X1 Obsidian Sentry (decor)

Lastly, all who enter will receive x1 free Romanovtsa* as consolation for entry. 

*Only x1 allotted per person regardless of ticket number. 

The Romanovtsa is a common fauna which is not meant to give those who enter a significant advantage over those who don’t. 

How to Enter 

Fill out this Google form with the necessary information. 

That’s it! No purchase necessary for entry! 

This time around, users may only enter once per individual. You do not need to be a backer to enter. 

To be transparent: Much like most anonymous events, we cannot stop you from proxying with a second email address for yourself, but we want to ask you to upkeep an honor system in fairness to other users. 

Dates

The sweepstakes start today 01/09/24 and will end next month 02/09/24 at noon EST! 

After which, all remaining attempts at entry will be considered null. 

Good luck! 

Can I Still Financially Support the Project?

We’ve gotten this question a few times, and for now simply donating to our PayPal and telling your friends about us is the best way to support. We’ll look into support bundles in the future!

Unrelated Check In 

Lastly, I want to fill in on where we are with Longhairs! 

Unfortunately, I got sick basically right before the final sprint to get them to the creator. Our goal now is to have them this month as we make up for the lost time, but once again I do apologize. It is frustrating beyond belief that this happened in the middle of work! 

We’re doing our best to catch up now. I got put really out of commission and it's quite regrettable for a small team. But we're bouncing back!

This next official check in, we'll be discussing dedicated alpha and our plans for the year. Lots of exciting things as we go into this new year! 

Thank you!

[pawborough]

Hey all!

Happy December! To all who celebrate holidays this month, we want to give a warm paw from The PawBorough Team! And to all who have a hard time this season, our hearts reach out to you and we wish you peace this month. 

We’re hard at work! There is a lot of fun stuff brewing on our end. Let's take a look at a few things:

Upcoming Creator Update - Longhairs

Longhairs are coming! Expect this drop to come within the next week. We are once again aiming for the 15th! Alongside this breed, Cheeks and Lollipop will be returning for this next push!

We’re concurrently working on Moontails. Take a peak at some behind-the-scenes previews of our new wing patterns:

Solid Ribbon wings; wing design and illustration by Hydde

Valentine Ribbon wings; wing design and illustration by Asp

Valentine Silk wings; wing design and illustration by Asp

We're quite happy with these designs!

Asset Update - Fauna

Our newest backer Fauna!

Caric

Sponsored and concepted by Avefeine, illustrated by Remmie and Hydde

Next, it was discussed among backers on our Kickstarter assets getting the overhaul treatment we gave our cats and new art. We want visual consistency and style adherence, so we've begun updating the assets to better fit the visual direction we've settled into! 

Featherbeau

Original design by Ursiday, illustration by Hydde

Kitsugi

(note: I typo'd this as Kintsune on the Kickstarter version of this post. It's Kitsugi!)

Original design by Ursiday, illustration by Hydde

While the original illustrations were lovely, they presented quite a bit of style disparity to our newer assets. We did our best to keep the integrity of the originals while tweaking and simplifying to better fit the design philosophies we hold now. We hope you enjoy!

 Asset Update - Backdrops and Themes 

Sol Outskirts

Design and illustration by Jackson, directed by Skazinbud

And a night version!

Recolor by Jackson, directed by Skazinbud

Abyssal Outskirts - Night

Recolor by Jackson, directed by Skazinbud

Last time we got caught up in our creator update, we didn't give enough of a showcase to our fantastic first nest art!

Harvest Nest 

Illustration by Hydde, directed by Skazinbud

This art is showcased in the back of our current breeding demo, but will be more visually prominent when breeding in the game! The plan is for each Borough to get a unique nest art. This is for Harvest!

You all saw Prowlers a few updates ago and in our new Cat Creator. Well, introducing…

New breed - Thumper

Design and illustration by Amelia Bothe

The Thumper!

Known for coming from Harvest, the Thumper is a cross between the Prowler and a domestic rabbit!

We’re very pleased with the marriage between the carnivorous and herbivorous in this mystic. The design lends for fun NPC potential!

Sketch by Remmie

Sketch by Tybaxel

While it may seem odd at first glance, we are going to weave two Harvest starters into our lore and ongoing story in a way that we hope our users will appreciate for interactivity!

The Thumper will be an available mystic counterpart to players at launch. 

November Update Retrospective

I want to take some time to talk about the last update with our new Cat Creator. We tested a few things, learned a few others, and this is our piece of communication on the whole ordeal!

First off, the launch itself:

We experienced technical difficulties the first 8 hours of updating live. Without giving away the technicals of our operation, there was an issue with both our hosting and with the platform setup that was messing up and crashing the system. It took the day to find it, and we were stressing pretty hard initially!

All of this was a learning experience. We learned to better prepare stress-testing, and we solved an internal issue that was best found now rather than later. We also learned as a team not to underestimate the amount of traffic new content will bring. We’re more prepared for the future!

We celebrate how fast this turnaround was. However, we’ve heeded what we need to expect when going into larger user numbers. As we near completing the game loop and prepping for a committed alpha-test of our functionality, this experience will be on our minds on what to prepare for and what to avoid.

The Positives

Let’s go over the positive things we heard!

Breeding:

We understand that presenting an alternative breeding system was a contentious choice, especially with a lack of visual aid to help immerse the player. Getting a breeding demonstration out became a top priority, because text simply could not describe the experience we were designing.

It appears that breeding has largely been received well! We had a celebration over this, as it gave a huge boost to our morale. We wanted to solve problems with the previous breeding system, and we accomplished this! We’re all very happy with this!

Some may still struggle with a learning curve, which we will do our best to have detailed tutorials on the website when launching.

White Coverage:

This was another mechanic which was initially met with dissent, and which we were nervous about following its announcement. It was a very pleasant experience to see positive interaction with the outcomes. It appears that the mechanic actually gave people even more to do with our cat creator, letting people re-discover combinations and patterns in new and exciting ways. A wonderful outcome!

There were pain points, however, which we will address.

The Negatives

Dynamic Undercoats:

There was frustration expressed with the dynamic undercoats. Many people saw the benefit to its existence, but that it was limiting to be forced upon the player. We hear this!

It took some thinking and processing this feedback, but we’ve made a decision. Going forward, we plan to implement a solution which will give users a “gene” option for undercoats. This will include standard and dynamically lightened coloring, but we will not be adding patterns to this option. 

This change will unfortunately not be immediate as we prioritize our resources, bug fixes, and development timeline, but we will be implementing this solution down the road. We apologize for any inconvenience!

White Coverage Feedback:

We heard the feedback on users wishing to customize white coverage. While it’s our intention for this mechanic to largely remain RNG-based in regular play, we understand how frustrating it is in a custom design context such as the cat creator. Going forward, alongside the undercoat fix, we will be implementing a UI for choosing white marks. Once again, this won’t be immediate, but it is firmly on our to-do. We want to have this option available for founders at launch.

We also heard and experienced that this is not a replacement for a reliable calico pattern. We will be re-implementing a calico pattern to overcoats in the future! This will hopefully coexist with white coverage to keep cats unique, but also not frustrate users.

Asset / Development Update - Generative Tiles

We have the first iteration of our custom map generation software! Have a look at a few examples we test generated for our first simple stage, Sky Hill:

Tile illustrations by Hydde

This is a very exciting breakthrough in development. We have the opportunity to expand and beef this out in the future. For now, it’s wonderful to see the system we set up in motion.

One of the most exciting things about this development is that we implemented the logic of “seeds,” meaning these generative maps can be saved and theoretically viewed again. What this means for us is the ability to pre-plan maps for potential “story missions” in the future. That being: missions which accompany or progress the ongoing site story!

UI Update - Combat and Team Gameplay

We set out to design something that could both entertain people with varying strategy, and which has the least amount of button-click demand. We tried to streamline the design so it is as easy to perform an action as possible.

We have a very basic layout for the beginning and for our MVP, but there's a lot of opportunity to expand a grid system like this to include more variety and entertainment that isn't just fighting enemies or other players.

For example, with a groundwork like this, in the future we could implement capture the flag stages, puzzle stages, or minesweeper-esque stages. The opportunities this opens up for us as we expand are very exciting and keeps us motivated for future development!

Take a look at our team member UIs as well. We have the logic for NPC dialogue carousels, which will be a lot of fun!

We hope you like our progress so far!

Development Update - Mobile Application

We're concurrently working on the mobile application. This progress is much less fast-tracked, but still impressive to see coming along! So far, we have an implementation of the cat creator design and functionality. Here is a video:

Due to the demands and our small team, this application will likely not be coinciding with public launch, however we want to communicate and show that it is being worked on!

As far as our main application goes, we're all-in on Guild logistics! Customize and scene building was a behemoth to wrap up, but we have the functionality there for beta!

Next, some news on a support event we will be doing!

Upcoming Support Raffle

We've gotten a few questions in the past on how those who missed our Kickstarter could support our continued development, or even just get in on the rewards.

We have an opportunity opening up to both support our game and for a chance to win a prize!

One of our “Design an Accessory” tiers was refunded in July, as well as a few add-ons. This leaves an opening for this content to be redistributed.

We will be raffling off this tier and all its benefits with very low price entry-tickets. More details on how to enter, dates, and the breakdown of the full prize will be posted tomorrow on 12/13/2023!

Thank you! 

To Summarize: We shared a peak on our development on Moontail assets, our plans for Longhairs this next week, new and updated Fauna, several backdrop assets, the Thumper breed, a look at Guild gameplay, and progress on our mobile app! 

What to expect next month: Continued asset and application development, a look at site Borough themes, possible accessory expansion.

[pawborough]

Try out our new dual Cat Creator and breeding demo HERE

We're consistently updating it with new patterns and breeds!

More about our project under the cut!

PawBorough is an interactive cat-based RPG currently in development. PawBorough invites users to collect felines of all different stripes, lineages, and colors, breed them together to discover exciting new combinations, go on quests with a unique dungeon crawling system, and build a web of relationships to personalize the player experience.

Players are encouraged to express creativity as they complete quests by embracing and expanding on the story provided for them. PawBorough uniquely incorporates adventuring elements into its gameplay, including inspiration from community storytelling and tabletop adventure games. You as the player will help decide the direction of the sitewide campaign, collectively interacting with our NPCs and driving the story through everyday play.

You will choose which of the seven Boroughs to join, each with their own unique aesthetics and cultural practices. You will be given a camp to build, leveling your cats and expanding through the fictional world as you discover new items, foster relationships, and dress-up your unique felines!

Keep up with our development by following this blog, checking our Kickstarter, or to keep in touch with our growing community and discuss updates, consider joining our Discord.

[pawborough]

are you allowed to use results from the cat generator demo offsite (like on roleplay sites?)

Yes! All we ask is that you credit us if it's a public place!

[pawborough]

This month marks the one year anniversary of our successful Kickstarter.

The time has come, a very large and exciting update…

Let's not waste time.

The new Cat Creator update is LIVE!

And on top of that, it's coupled with our first ever live BREEDING PREDICTOR!

Currently, we only feature the three starter breeds. Over the next few months leading up to beta release, we will be adding new content to this demonstration, with Longhairs and Moontails coming first.

Few things of note!

We chose to keep the frontend UI of this demonstration page very limited so as not to distract our small coding team from the important development tasks. While we wanted to deck it out with bells and whistles, keeping it simple meant less time spent slowing down production of the more important bells and whistles that will be present at beta.  

Pages like the TOS and lore will make a return in the near future! With everything overhauled, we wanted to “start fresh” with rolling things out.  

We also chose to keep the mobile UI temporarily simple for the sake of prioritizing time and resources. Building out the more optimized mobile setup is on our development map.  

 Night mode will return! We’re currently finalizing the theme colors.

But we’re very excited to show you what we have so far. A lot of nitty gritty technicals went into this base functionality.

From there, the biggest behemoth we faced was our commitment to better quality assets.

The original demonstration was a prototype. One where we experimented, learned the ins and outs of the project, and used our resources to pitch the concept of an indie build-your-own-cat RPG experience. Early on, we received quite a bit of criticism on the visual development.

Once we had wind in our sails, we resolved to take that criticism seriously and come out the gate stronger, more professional, and far more confident than our concept pitch. The team committed to making something out of this world. We love this project, and wanted to put our all into it.

Our patterns now sport a painterly style, which better aligns to the original vision that we were trying to achieve with our first iteration. 

After taking over as lead of the project, I learned and improved at giving artistic direction, and we as a team set out to unify the style. I could not be happier with the stunning work the cat artists have produced. What we now have is strong, unique, and cohesive.

It's all thanks to the masterfully skilled artists who worked hard to present what we are delivering today.

I want to shout out every artist who has worked on the assets seen in this demonstration. Without these people, we would not be here.

Thank you to:

Amelia (@ Pixus.art on Instagram) 

Hydde (@ Nettlenest on Twitter)

Fulemy (@ Fulemy on Instagram)

Tybaxel (@ Tybaxel on Twitter)

Irene (https://irenehuang.com/) 

Remmie (@ Hybridremmie on Instagram)

Emma (@ Missbluefrost on Instagram)

Eli (@ Nightly.art on Instagram)

and Asp! (@ Aspidal on Furaffinity) 

For working on the cats!

Thank you to

Jerso (@ YerLAKAR on Twitter) for work on the current header! 

And a big hand to our developers!

Wade

Sam

Harvey

Eric

And Jess!

All from CKCollab!

What's new in the Cat Creator?

Now let’s go over every change you will. Some of these new aspects will be an adjustment. To help keep clear communication, we want to lay out our thought process behind each choice.

1. The Color Wheel

The benefit of a limited color wheel is care and attention to aesthetic fine-tuning. Having every color predetermined for a cat means that there is no unfavorable color-blending between two parents. With preselection, we get more aesthetic appeal. However, historically this system has been limited for two reasons.

We have gone over this previously, so this is a quick summary:

Randomly generated cats with no prior breeding history end up unfavorably mismatched more often than not.  

Breeding with so many color selections needs an alternative accommodating system for such a large catalog.

It was for these reasons that we previously wished to keep the wheel small. However, this was at the cost of a great deal of color diversity and representation. As a game about design, we returned to the drawing board to solve these problems rather than just working around them.

To refresh and summarize our solutions:

Generation 1 cats will generate from a selection of color pools, with totally random RNG being one of the pools so as not to lock out combinations. Example: a “gothic” pool of saturated reds and monochrome colors. We plan to have many of these so new cats still sport many different outcomes. And Shufflestones will still organically scramble colors!  

We updated our breeding to focus around hue, saturation, and luminosity (also known as “lightness.”) Depending on the categories of the two colors you mix, your outcome will be picked from the same categories.

With these solutions in place, we could think more freely about user demand for color variety and utility. We expanded to a final total of 234 colors.

There are, and this is not an exaggeration, nearly 10,000 hand picked hex codes available in this demonstration; including both pattern colors and custom shadow colors. This was no small feat! It's work that pays off, as these colors can be consistently repurposed for new patterns, which we are mighty proud of. The color wheel was a long term labor of love that we poured our hearts into, discussing every aspect of cohesive design, color theory, namesake inspiration, variety, user demand, and wider aesthetic appeal. We feel that the work paid off!

2. Undercoats

We started with an Overcoat/Undercoat/Accent system which gave equal patterning opportunity to each section of the cat. While this allowed for some pleasing combinations when strategically applied, Undercoat patterns were frequently busy with very little leeway for tasteful design. It was a setup which, while neat in concept, was doomed to fail from the get go. Putting a flat illustration with curves with the body directly over a technicolor pattern was simply a challenging system to make visually work. We dummy illustrated quite a few undercoat patterns and were hitting a wall while making transitions. With a system which expects us to always be adding new patterns, we didn’t feel we could sustain this.

So we revisited the design. We removed undercoat patterns, but added two accents to allow for equally large customization opportunities. This helped to concentrate customization, letting us confidently hone in on and focus on large and small accents for more variety in options.

As previously discussed, one of our goals was to make sure colors worked together with different patterns. With our original system, we had frequent anxiety and strenuous workshopping with patterns like tiger, where darker or same-color undercoats would absolutely decimate the visual. As well, lowering the value of "double-color" cats.

We wanted to keep the beauty of more detailed cat markings, but it felt impossible with the color restrictions. It felt punishing to have so many incongruent combinations to the intention of the design. 

A definite improvement!

This is our most radical change, and one we know will take the most adjustment. It comes with pros and cons, but the decision saved many patterns from looking unsalvageable over half of the time due to the nature of designing pattern transitions.

There are and will be overcoat patterns which do not alter the undercoat, and we intend to experiment further with how to best utilize this mechanic.

In general, we try to take risks when they’re necessary for the betterment of visual cohesion and meeting the appropriate expectations for a pattern. We hope you all can understand and accept this change!

3. Line-breaking Accents

We also are introducing consistent line-breaking accents. We’ve made the decision to distinguish line-breaking accents with accessories by distincting worn items with biological modifications.

In short, if something is separate from a cat’s body and can be worn, it’s an accessory. If something is part of a cat’s body, like fur, fins, or claws, it’s an accent.

Overgrowth was created before this distinguishing, so it is an outlier. But this is the rule we will follow going forward!

Line-breaking accents will be available to toggle the layering of in your cat’s outfit editor!

* Note: currently Overgrowths generating together clips and we intend to fix/limit this in the future. 

4. White Coverage

White coverage is functional and ready for testing! This is our first live rendition of the real thing, so we’re open to feedback. We changed the “percentage” UX to something much simpler. We feel this is all around a better, more intuitive system.

One thing of note is that Calico as it has been known is not here, intended to be replaced with white coverage and bi-color patterns. We received early feedback that this was potentially frustrating, and are noting that going forward.

Another thing of note is that we are actively working on redundancies and ones which look poorly together. If you see an awkward shape with broken seams, we are probably going to fix it!

Overall, it’s a very cool mechanic!

5. Missing Patterns

Not all the patterns or genes from the old demo are here. Don’t panic!

While simple patterns like Cheeks and Lollipop are coming back soon (we just have to space out our work), patterns such as Cloudy/Day are on the backburner for now.

We want to re-illustrate this concept, but tackling it in our new style is a challenge best left for when we can better spread out our time and resources. Right now, artists are busy busy busy with everything necessary for beta and launch, and these challenging patterns take up precious time and resources best used to get the game in a playable state.

We apologize! It wasn’t easy making this decision, and this pattern is not gone forever. We simply opted for a smaller number of complex illustrations at this beginning stage.

6. New Eye Format

Eyes have now been split between Borough, Eye Type, and Eye palette! This allows you to change physical characteristics while customizing colors! For example, you can now create duo clouded eyes!

To summarize the major changes:

The color wheel was massively beefed out  

Undercoats no longer have selectable patterning  

Undercoat colors dynamically adjust to the overcoat pattern  

There are two accent slots instead of one  

Accents can now be significantly line-breaking, and will be inter-layerable with accessories  

White coverage is functional  

Patterns are missing. Some are coming back very soon, others are shelved to come back at a later date

New eye system allows for more customization  

Wahoo! A lot of changes, some more drastic than others, but hopefully all around a competent design experience! Everything we have here is far more strongly in-line with our vision. We sincerely hope you enjoy!

P.S If you see any colors that look broken: let us know!

So how does breeding work?

This is the 1.0 version of our new breeding system. Most notably, things like rarities can and may be tweaked.

We encourage you to try it out for yourself!

Simply design two cats at the top, then click the “view offspring” button to load the cats into the breeding predictor. From there, you can view their color ranges and randomized outcomes. You will have to click this button again if you change the two cats.

Luminosity is determined by if the sun is clear (light), half full (medium), or filled in (dark). Colors with a paint drop are saturated, and colors without one are desaturated.

Is red, light, and saturated.

By mixing these three categories, you will receive differing outcomes dependent on adding the categories together. Think of it like so:

What hue is each color?  The color selection will be picked via available hues. If both colors are the same hue, your results will only include that hue. If the colors are two different hues, you will get multiple results depending on the two. Refer to this chart to help make sense of the combinations:

Are both colors saturated, desaturated, or both? If one color is saturated and one is desaturated, all your results will be both saturated and desaturated. If both colors are saturated, all your results will be saturated. If both colors are desaturated, all your results will be desaturated.  

Are both colors different luminosities? If one color is light and one is dark, the outcome colors will be light, medium, and dark. If one color is light and one is medium, the outcome colors will be light and medium. If one color is medium and one is dark, the outcome colors will be medium and dark. If both colors are the same luminosity, the outcome colors will be that single luminosity.  

Using this logic, we can determine that a few examples:

A red saturated light color and a blue desaturated dark color will yield all colors which fit any of the following: Red, pink, purple, or blue hue Saturated or desaturated Light, medium, or dark luminosity  

A purple saturated medium color and a purple saturated dark color will yield all colors which fit any of the following: Purple hue Saturated Medium or dark luminosity  

As an added feature, we hear that users wish to intentionally pass down similar colors to that of the parents, to make copies of their pretty combinations. So:

If both parents are the same color, that color has an 80% chance of passing down.

This can be workshopped based on user feedback.

Overall, it’s a very fun system!

Name Generation...?

All cats will be generated with a name which can be freely changed at any time. The first iteration of this concept is seen in our breeding demo.

We’re aware the current beta state of our name generator makes some… very silly names! It’s become an internal source of entertainment to laugh at what we get. We’re working on a more polished version that outputs less consistently doofy combinations.

So, what else is new?

As massive as this drop is, we have some other little fun things to share!

Banks, Storage and Safekeeping

We have functionality for a core game mechanic and that is… inventory management!

Items are kept in your storage, with the ability to move your items to safekeeping as a way to remove them from everyday use!

This is common functionality. Nothing exciting. But we have something new to share!

Introducing… banks!

“Banks” are pockets of currency you can keep in your storage. You can create, name, and delete as many as you like! We hope this functionality will be a welcome quality of life for players who organize currency for customizing certain cats, for exchanging items and services, or for saving up for a specific purchase.

Overall, managing your on-site currency just got easier!

Take a look at the functionality.

Scene Building

Scene Building has hit a breakthrough! We have the functionality for the “stickerbook” customize feature. This one tickles me a lot, because it’s so fun to play with.

And as a final check-in, we’ve started on Guild functionality. We have UI designs built out and are moving into the meat. After that, it’s just markets, cooking/crafting, and forums as far as getting the big stuff laid out. Wahoo! Very fun!

To Summarize: We shared a demo drop AND a breeding simulator, resource organization functionality—namely a new feature called banks—and a look at scene building functionality.

What to expect next month: A look at Team and Guild functionality, further assets and mechanic development.

[pawborough]

Hey all!

Happy 1 year anniversary to the launch of our Kickstarter! Meow! We just can't believe it. The project has grown and matured immensely since its inception, and with the hard work of the team it's become something amazing!

We know that for a monument this big, it's expected to see a big update; something which immortalizes our accomplishments.

We are working on a HUGE November drop!

November celebrates our funding milestone, so we'll be going all out! This update is business as usual. But brewing under the surface of our team… we are preparing something grand.

New Fauna

Sponsored and concepted by Apollo, designed and illustrated by Hydde

A wonderful backer-sponsored design!

*Name is not final 

New Gene

Speaking of backer sponsored assets, we have finished rendering a gene sponsored for our game:

Sponsored and concepted by Venex, final design and illustration by Fulemy

Here are a few color previews!

Hawthorne, Apple, Daybreak, Radish, Beetroot, Lily, Peony, Dragonfruit, Catmint, Fire, Flame, and Silver

Aaaaand we are working on translating Overgrowth! Check out this ivy version!

Illustrated by Remmie

New Backdrops

It's a great month for environmental art! 

Harvest Outskirts

Illustrated by Jerso

Zenith Outskirts

Composition by Runeowl, illustrated by Jacksonjoker

Luna Outskirts

Illustrated by Harriertail

And that's it for this time around!

Mechanic Updates

We've completed the backend for:

Item storage and item "safekeeping" mechanic

Daily hunting party duties (item gathering) and cat-dependent advantages in daily activities 

Customize and dress-up for a cat

We also built the item card and accessory preview functionality on the frontend!

Frontend designs for all of these mechanics are done, it's onto frontend building! Once we wrap up this section of development, it's onto the Guild, cooking/crafting, and market mechanics! After which, the game will be in a playable state... wow! 

To Summarize: We shared new fauna, backdrops, the new backer gene, a preview of Overgrowth, and an update on where we are in development. 

What to expect next month: Something big... 

[pawborough]

Hello, all! Thank you for the patience at the later update! It's my goal to get them back on track with updates on or near the 10th. We waited this month for two reasons:

1. A few artists went on short hiatus, leaving less to show on the art side.

2. We're focusing a great deal of manpower towards the Cat Creator, including hand-selecting every color and its accents for each gene, balancing the wheel choice in our new system, and full steam ahead illustrating coverage and patterns you all are familiar with on new poses.  We are MIGHTY proud of our work, and feel all the effort going into colors and genes will pay off, but there's not a lot to show off until the huge update (aside from a very extensive and colorful spreadsheet. We are drowning in hex codes!) Our wheel is truly like no other in its aesthetics, but it is taking a healthy amount of effort. 

It was for this reason that we chose to wait until there was a bit more content to show. Next months update may be smaller as we get back on track to the 10th of every month. 

We have great news on what we have completed!

First, let's look at some art!

New Fauna

More backer sponsored Fauna!

Starchaser

Sponsored and concepted by J. Tazer Pones, designed and illustrated by Hydde

Irimar

Sponsored and concepted by Isb, designed and illustrated by Hydde

Glasswing

Sponsored and concepted by SolsticeStar, designed and illustrated by Hydde

And here is a peak at what's being lined currently!

Icons

How about those icons? We think they're coming out quite charming!

Squid, Bok Choy, Wool, Feathers, Hay, Pebbles, Clay, Cream, Brick, Salt Lick, and Sulfur, illustrated by Remmi

Backdrop WIPs

We're chipping away at backdrops! Here are a few work in progresses!

WIP Luna theme header by Runeowl and Mirko

WIP Harvest theme header by Runeowl and Harriertail

WIP Flower Meadow by Harriertail

UI Updates

Next, we're pleased to share what we feel is a fantastic final for our UI layouts. 

Cat Creator

The cat creator went through the industrial meat grinder of testing and iteration. We had several prototypes working, all with pros and cons. A lot of consideration went into user experience, including:

Ensuring the least amount of clicking to see all the options, while still categorizing the content intuitively

In tandem, best utilizing the space to show the most amount of content at once, giving as many options as possible

Help the user best understand the relationship between what is being clicked and what is changing on the cat, with ease of navigation between each option

Give the user an easily accessible "summary" of each trait, color, and pattern that was chosen for the cat 

Find an intuitive way to express the "Saturation / Luminosity" relationship on each color choice while not overwhelming the screen with jumbles of words

We are still toying with colors and superficial visuals, but this is the final layout being built!

The "Summary & Navigation" section will showcase what traits the cat shown is sporting (ex. Ragdoll Adult, Orange Solid, No White, Traditional Eyes.) 

On mobile, the trait summary is represented by a third icon option the user can click. Otherwise, a mobile user can toggle between color and pattern for each section. 

You also will see a color navigator with buttons for every hue, and symbols for "saturated," "dark," "medium," and "light."

Some of these options may seem incongruent from the current creator. Most notably: two accents! 

It may seem like a damning choice. Really, more colors to worry about?

As a reminder, we will be grouping colors to allow for a larger chance at complementary colors (we are not ridding the chance at full randomization, just weighing it more equally against a large number of coordinated options.)

Furthermore, we are adding both line-breaking accents and very, very minor accents like ear fluff (we figured out a way to group it with mystic breeds), skin colors, or freckles on the skin. This was the best direction for both creative freedom and restriction among these options. 

The largest worry we had when considering this decision was user pressure to utilize every slot on the cat. This was at the forefront of our minds all throughout PB's concepting!

As a solution, we are taking a design approach which will encourage users both to use and not use accent slots, depending on the character they are building. We have a reward system in the works which incentivizes both routes! As a character building game with focus on your characters and near limitless possibilities, we are designing a system which values cats and rewards the player not necessarily by abundance in design, but direction and creativity. 

Simply put, building a cat the way you like it will be rewarding. This system will be unveiled at a later date, but it's great addition for the casual, creative, and breeding side of the playerbase! All of this combined made the most sense for a second accent. 

Cat Profile

This is halfway built on the front-end, and will be done very soon!

Breeding

Big news, generative breeding functionality is done!

We wrapped up the breeding logic, and banged out what I believe is an excellent UI. Everything is fully functional!

Users can view not only a rotation of offspring previews, but view all the colors available to the offspring in each slot. 

As well, users can choose what Borough their cat nests in as a premium feature. This includes a "traveling" option which randomizes the Borough for each potential kit!

Also in the preview is the nest tending page. Nests are tended to with items, and users can add midwives to forego the need to manually give said items. This mechanic is being built out!

I realize these previews might look abysmal. We want to be transparent on what we're doing and show "the sausage being made" per se. What's missing from these deployments currently is final pattern assets (previews are dummies for function testing), theme assets, icon placements, and hex codes; all things that aren't actually slowing down development on the technical side. They are very quick inserts once completed, and while it looks like a mess, this page is 99% done! 

It's one step closer to a live update on the website!

We're working next on finishing the cat profile build, the customize functions (scene building, outfit building), and the daily item garnering mechanic!

Thank you everyone!

To Summarize: We shared new Fauna, icons, backdrop work-in-progresses, the final cat creator UI, the cat profile UI, and a look at our completed breeding functionality. 

What to expect next month: Further asset renderings, outfit/scene building design, further functionality previews of what we are working on next. 

[pawborough]

Hey all!

Apologies for the late update! I attended an overnight charity cause which left me without the ability to post for a prolonged period. I still did remote work and the team made quite a bit progress! But please forgive the delay!

First off on the agenda, to address the criticisms surrounding the previous update: we hear you!

From what our team gathered, the largest feedback we received was:

I want my ranges to be larger

I want my ranges to be smaller

To sum up, while we received positives on the idea of color sorting for ranges, we received pushback on the limiting of ranges to only a few hues at a time at any given time. 

Our solution is to broaden the amount of color you can mix. The results allow for a similar amount of curation and variation as the wheel, but with our added intent of more intuitive color mixing. 

Originally, we called this system paint mixing system, where we intended for hues to mix as you would expect paint to. I.e, you breed a red and green cat to get brown, or a blue and red cat to get purple. 

This was limiting, we understand. So. we've moved over to light mixing. Same concept, same hue/saturation/lightness rules, but now the rules of the color mixing follow that of the light spectrum as opposed to paint. 

Above is a handy chart for hue mixing. If you breed two cats of different hues, you can get a range of outcomes depending on the two hues. 

Red and blue move through pink and purple, so breeding a red and a blue cat equals pink, purple, red, or blue kits!

The best news? With this system, taking into account the hue/saturation/lightness factors, users can selectively breed for up to 118 colors on the current 221 list. Previously, only 110 were available with the wheel system. 

We hear the feedback that certain colors may be rarer than others due to hue number variation, and we're taking this into account as well with an effort to even the categories. 

Lastly, we're experimenting with higher percent chances to pass down a color if both parents meet certain parameters. Example: If both parents have Rose overcoat, we're experimenting with a higher percentage to pass down Rose overcoat, and what that percentage may be. 

Thank you everyone for such valuable feedback on our game! 

Getting a breeding demo out is very high priority! That's really our next step! We're focusing on illustrating base patterns for the starter breeds, and letting loose a breeding and creator demo before updating it with more breeds and patterns as we get closer to launch. Luckily, we've heavily streamlined this process and have a working creator ready for assets! 

Thank you so much!

Asset Update: Prancer Mars

Sometime back, we updated the mars Prancer to better utilize the space. We wanted to keep the integrity of the pose, but learned the way in which the old art became squashed very easily.

Here is a comparison shot!

Prancers will be the first priority for breed release post-launch. Wahoo!

New Fauna

Great news! We have completed last-pass sketches for almost all backer fauna!

We are waiting on responses from a select few, but we knocked out over a dozen Fauna with our backers, with approved last-pass sketches now being finalized!

Here are two recently completed!

Korg'warde

Sponsored and concepted by Kardi, designed and illustrated by Hydde

Twinklobite

Sponsored and concepted by Angel, designed and illustrated by Hydde

Can you guess what animals they are? 

New Assets: Backdrops

We have several environmental pieces to show.

First off is the Abyssal header for the site theme, should you join Abyssal!

Design and illustration by Runeowl

Next, to keep with the Abyssal theme, here is the "Abyssal Outskirts." This backdrop will be available for free if you join Abyssal!

Design and Illustration by Harriertail and Runeowl

Lastly, a piece called "Cobblestone Clearing," a Cogwheel-based backdrop that will be available to all users!

Design and illustration by Skazinbud and Runeowl

The work has been steady, quality, and the team is thrilled!

Functionality Update: User Profile and Dens 

We finished onboarding! Logged in users can now do the following, tested multiple times:

Select Borough

Create, name, and select attributes for Founder cats 

Create the first den and name the user's camp

And with the new stuff, we tackled more complicated logic. Users can now:

Create, title, delete, and edit dens to store cats

Toggle to view all cats within all dens 

Search for cat names

Organize cat positions and move cats from one den to another

And!

Edit the User Profile by adding widgets

Edit HTML/CSS boxes on the user profile 

Organize, add, remove, and save widgets and their contents 

Certain margin placements are a work in progress as we build out! It may look a bit rudimentary when lacking the CSS, but the meat of functionality is there!

Frontend designs for the majority of the functions for the cat profile, inventory, item cards, and breeding are completed, making up a huge swath of the game!

To Summarize: We shared an updated modification to the breeding algorithm, the Prancer mars, new Fauna, backdrops, and functionality in the works

What to expect next month: Further asset illustrations, frontend breeding functionality, potentially frontend staging for the cat profile 

And expect the creator + breeding demo to be our next big drop!

[pawborough]

Hey all!

As promised, an update with transparency on how we intend to tackle the color relationship for breeding going forward!

Through prioritizing a user’s ability to breed for consistently favorable results–both from wishing to improve and maintain general aesthetic appeal and from a choice to increase cat scarcity–the PB team has reached a conclusion regarding the way we have set up colors.

Over the past few months, we’ve been developing and testing an alternative approach to the “wheel.”

Originally, breeding was developed using a “color wheel” which would be used as a point of reference for the range of colors two cats could produce. Colors on the wheel between one another would be included in the potential offspring.

Problems we ran into with this system:

Results get unpredictable. Being fully dependent on RNG, wide-range pairs are frequently able to produce unintuitive color combinations.

These chaotic outcomes can de-incentivize breeding with our setup, as Pawborough aims for breeding to be meaningful and rewarding near every time, rather than producing frequent duds en masse which de-values most cats.

A wheel system means that every new color added will broaden two cats’ breeding color range, further increasing the above problems and causing user fatigue. This limits how much color variety and customization we can add.

Ranges are up to the gradients of the wheel, which may also cause user frustration and fatigue. Approaches to setting up a horizontal gradient vary depending on which aspect of a color’s HSL is prioritized for the gradient. Results are inevitably hand-selected. Two oranges can end up on opposite sides of the wheel, for example, frustrating a user who wishes to breed for an orange range and gets red or green in the mix. (Simply put: Two colors which look similar can be very different, and cause issues with how to organize them.)

As a summary: Colors are challenging to organize with such simple conditions, and outcomes fatigue users, produce unintuitive results, and limit our ability to expand the colors.

So what is the solution to these problems? Introducing… a paint mixing system!

The paint mixing system categorizes a color into three categories: Hue, Saturation, and Luminosity

Hue includes the following:

Greyscale

Brown

Red

Orange

Yellow

Green

Teal

Blue

Purple

Pink

Saturation includes the following:

Saturated

Desaturated

Luminosity includes the following:

Light

Medium

Dark

This is not the final lineup, as we are picking accent colors and consistently tooling if there are any weak or lacking color combinations based on user base preferences and enjoyment. By the time this all hits the website, it’ll be final!

These three categories are then taken into account for the breeding ranges.

Outcomes result with whatever categories the cats possess.

For example, a Blue, Light, Saturated color and a Brown, Light, Desaturated color will produce a range of Brown and Blue colors which include only those that are Light, Saturated, and Desaturated!

In addition, in order to preserve some of the fun of large ranges and breeding strategy while remaining intuitive, certain hue combinations will broaden the range based on properties of paint. Breeding a Red and Blue color will produce a range of Red, Blue, and Purple colors!

For comparison, here are those same pairs with the wheel system, with potential offspring colors intentionally picked to show the amount of disparity in this system in comparison to the more consistent examples above:

These outcomes are night and day, giving users a much needed increase in control over what they breed for! Much of the team has felt relief and surprise at the sheer amount of improvement seen in the testing results. 

The color picker in the cat generator will also have indications of these categories, with ease to navigate between hues.

So many colors.. but what about Generation 1 cats...?

We've solved the breeding issues that come with a large wheel. Ranges will be relatively predictable and easy to control or curate. 

However, the other question raised is: what becomes of generation 1 cats? The more RNG there is, the higher the number of colors, the more likely you are to generate clashing colors when getting a new cat. How can we prevent the majority of generation 1 cats from looking like a mess?

Well, the benefit of a system like this, which pays careful attention to color categorization, is our ability to further categorize "pools" of color used for G1 generation. For example, a G1 cat may roll to only pull colors from a "pastel" pool, which only includes light and saturated colors, or the "gothic" pool, which only includes greyscale, red, and purple colors.

These are just examples, but we've been testing by generating several different pools, tooling with their conditions, and workshopping the amount of control we have over the pools. 

Of course, the "all colors" pool will still exist! However, weighing color generation in this way will provide more favorable outcomes the majority of the time, and compensate for a large wheel. We intend to have a great deal of pools to upkeep a healthy amount of RNG and variety while maintaining general aesthetics.

It's the best of all worlds! A large and expansive color variety, easy and intuitive breeding, and the organic population of the site is on average aesthetically pleasing!

I hope you all enjoy what we have here!

In other news, we are continuing color testing in an effort to make sure all undercoat/overcoat combinations are clean and aesthetically viable. I am fairly certain that we've settled on an excellent solution for the problems faced with consistently clashing colors when placed on the compositions of typical cat patterns. Not everything always works, but I'm confident in the results we're seeing. Further testing is required before we announce the latter half of the color and pattern system revamp, but good things are in store!

Thank you! See you all next month!

[pawborough]

Happy July! We’ve been chugging along and working our tails off. Here’s some progress!

New Assets - Fauna

First off, backer sponsored creatures!

Tundrake

Sponsored and concepted by Syber, designed and illustrated by Hydde

Lunasagi

Sponsored and concepted by Kuro, designed and illustrated by Remmie

Raptaroo

Sponsored and concepted by Skeevertut, designed and illustrated by Hydde

And a new regular guy... 

Frillasnap

Designed and illustrated by Hydde

New Assets - Icons

It isn’t a productive month without an icon batch. Let’s see ‘em!

Ginger, Deer Mouse, Vanilla Bean, Grub, Ladybug, Mealworm, Sesame Pod, Soybean, Sugarcane, Bee, and Sweet Root all illustrated by Remmie

New Assets - Site Header

Over the past several months, we have been tooling and going with a site layout which accommodates a differently shaped header.

Designed and illustrated by Runeowl

Take a look at the beautiful night and day more header art for the “default” site theme!

This layout is proving much cleaner with a more intuitive and dynamic user experience. We currently have several staging deployments to get a feel for it and workshop the experience.

However, it is under wraps for the time being until we have the text, tab, color, and box sizing decisions fully locked in! 

Thank you for the patience with our layout iterations! I’m really relieved by the direction things have gone, and feel Pawborough will be much fresher out the gate.

New Pattern - Butterfly

Designed and illustrated by Fulemy

We are playing with the face design further to make sure it best accommodates a variety of colors, but this pattern itself has turned out just stunning!

And we've been steadily working on producing and updating white coverage, going to great lengths to keep an aesthetic consistency between coverage shapes and cat patterns. Here are a few white shape tests on Butterfly!

Shapes designed by Hydde, illustrated by Remmie

New Pattern - Solid

We’ve decided to forego a universal “basic” pattern, and instead introduce a handful of very simple patterns which any G1 cat can generate with. Among them is Solid–one of the few patterns which does not show the undercoat!

This pattern will have varying levels of values per color! Some may have a dark back, while others may look like a totally solid cat! Here are a few auto-generated previews from our generation tool to get a feel for the variety:

We will be adjusting colors to make sure they are near fully solid, while others may look more dynamic. 

The decision to not include an undercoat may feel like we’re breaking our own rules here, but there’s been a great deal of workshopping for our initially lackluster system. In order to make all patterns and colors look consistently good with one another while maintaining a varied user experience, we took a new approach. This includes a slightly new set of rules and philosophy for our patterns to follow!

Patterns like Solid will be few and far between, but they’ll exist. Expect us to push the boundaries for patterns and genes in the future, including experimenting with line breaking accents... some really fun stuff in the works!

Speaking of changing up the philosophy, let’s talk about colors…

 Mechanic Update - Teaser... 

Due to time constraints with creating the supplemental preview images, and not wanting to present a concept without the appropriate visuals to back it up, nor delay the update another few days, I have decided to push an announcement meant for this update to next week. I wear a lot of hats on this team and am always working on something, so sometimes I fall behind on creating update images of our progress for you all, and for that I apologize! 

However, you may be delighted to hear that we have progressively refactored the color and breeding system and have a brand spanking new system which has proved incredibly exciting! The whole team is enthused by this development, and I will return in just a few days to share it! 

Backend / Functionality Progress

Development is steady. So far we've completed the following:

User Accounts, log in, sign up, and validation/confirmation. 

A users online count which tracks user activity. 

Logic for cat generation, all we need is to plug in the assets!

Backend for breeding. We can see generative results in code. 

Backend for the Camp and Den functionality, both this and breeding are next for front-end building. 

Current in-progress for front-end development is User Onboarding, where a user creates their two founding cats, designing their appearance, attributes, and statistics. 

Frontend UX/UI designs for the above plus cat profiles, a user dashboard, user profile, account settings, breeding, and inventory have been created. 

Below is a video which displays the prototype testing for onboarding! 

As you can see, we have a system being workshopped for "favorite flavor" "disliked flavor" and "nature." More word on that soon... :)

Backers may also feel concerned at the amount of attention involved in this onboarding process so far. We know backers will want to get in as fast as possible in order to obtain low IDs for their cats, and could get frustrated at the attention this takes. Please do not worry! In an effort to preserve early user legacy while allowing for users to take time on their founders, IDs of starting cats will be reserved the moment an account is authenticated, so no matter how much time you take, your starting cats' IDs will not change! 

To Summarize: We shared new Fauna, new icons, the new site header for the Default theme, the Butterfly and Solid patterns, and a first look at the onboarding prototype. 

What to expect next month: Further asset and functionality updates. We will begin populating and testing at least user dens, camps, and cat profiles, if not more. Expect a breakdown of a completely new and improved breeding and color system next week. 

[pawborough]

Hi all!

Welcome back! Let's cut to the chase. Lots of new things. 😸

New Fauna

A bunch of new Fauna! This last month we welcomed Hydde (@nettlenest on Twitter) to our Fauna team. She's made great strides in working together with our artists to help develop and refine our style. Let’s see some new and improved Fauna! 

Note, titles may not be final and are subject to change!

Flitaya

Design and illustration by Hydde

Lupiné

Design and illustration by Hydde

The Lupiné saw a few different iterations as we used it to help the team discuss and jump off which design methods and tactics we could improve to keep cat and Fauna consistent. I'm happy where we landed!

Romanovtsa

Design and illustration by Hydde

Next, see what backer designed Fauna we’ve completed!

Pixiebell

Sponsored and concepted by Sprigatito, designed and illustrated by Remmie

Adorvid

Sponsored and concepted by Mayumi, designed and illustrated by Hydde

Kodahiru

Sponsored and concepted by Markoth, designed and illustrated by Remmie

Our art team has really found its groove. Myself and the artists have all dedicated large efforts this past month to style development and consistency, and we could not be prouder of the outcome. Artists now work closely with one another on poking and prodding at design elements, rendering tactics, color choices, linework, and everything in between. After we had gotten a better, more cohesive idea of the direction to go, everyone got onboard with developing a tight-knit space of feedback and agile asset creation.

The results have been stellar! A big hand to the art team for their amazing care, skill, and diligence. The PB art style has become something I truly love and deeply appreciate, and we couldn't get here without this vital work!

Moving forward, we want to update all older, out-of-style Fauna and assets to more cleanly fit this better defined direction. I want to thank everyone for sticking by the project while we refined our artistic development and saw initial growing pains.

Accessories will also be retooled to better fit these style parameters. Backdrop style development and its synergy with the character art is still in the works by our backdrop artists. But I must say, based on what the artists are doing, good things are to come…

Our team, both art and development, has never been more confident in the visual strength of PB!

Updated Assets - Bovine

Icons

Tuna, Avocado, Red Snapper, Spinach, Eggplant, Cinnamon, Bamboo, Cacao, Lavender, Cotton, Egg, Wood, Carrot, Strawberry, and Sardine all illustrated by Remmie

Regarding icons, I’ve been experimenting with a new icon layout and design which I believe will vastly improve a player’s quality of life for item management.

This modal or “card” will be replacing a “tooltips” system. The goal in mind is to make things easier for mobile users. These cards will be available via button for any small icon view-- seen in the above mockup.

Important gameplay details about an item can now be at a player’s fingertips quickly. And, it's completely mobile friendly!

Icon cards open a wealth of opportunity for including far more information and user accessibility in a very easy, streamlined way. 

Within these cards, I can also add varying “flipside” QoL information, such as accessory previews and a display of which of your cats have the item equipped. 

Note that these are low fidelity wireframes of what icon cards will look like, but I'm intent on keeping the card design clean and simple to better accentuate its elements. This gives for a more refined aesthetic which better highlights our wonderful icon art. Overall, this approach intends to give more visual reverence to the items a player manages gameplay with, creating a more immersive vibe.

Updated Asset - Cardinal

Last month, we shared a new Tiger pattern which marked the start of a newfound art direction for pattern assets. Here is another to share, the Cardinal pattern!

Design and illustration by Fulemy

In addition, after refining the cardinal pattern, we took another pass at the Tiger pattern.

Not much to note, but we refined some style nitpicks.

White Coverage

Next, I am sharing something I feel very, very excited by!

Two things I most want to prioritize in PB’s gameplay are:

Cats looking good the majority of the time

Opportunity to bond with an individual cat, while viewing your cats as special and unique to your gameplay experience.

These priorities feed into one another when designing the aesthetics. New cats must be rarer, and the genetic/breeding/generation 1 system must be designed to consistently produce good looking cats as easily and consistently as possible.

But what about making them unique…?

Introducing White Coverage

Designed and illustrated by Hydde, refined by Runeowl

Inspired heavily by the concept behind Spinda the Pokémon, white coverage consists of several illustrations of white shapes which can be layered during cat creation to produce completely unique outcomes. Shapes are calculated and chosen by a cat’s coverage “percentage” of 0-100%.

Myself and the team collectively worked together to refine this mechanic and create a dummy test to prove the concept worked. Hydde illustrated 48 different white patterns on a single cat base, and we plugged them into a basic generator with a basic algorithm… results were exciting!

We're still tooling the algorithm behind generating breeding outcomes, but white coverage percentages and shapes already on the parents will be factored.

After our proof of concept promised success, the artists took to creating a consistent “map” of all shapes which will be available on each cat. We have over 100 shapes which theoretically equal several billion combinations!

Above are just a few examples of the different shapes which we are currently tooling with.

The benefit of a genetic slot like this includes repurposing the “calico” pattern! Calico can now be checked off by white coverage, and include many, many different calico cat options that weren't ever possible before this mechanic. It should be easier than ever to create differing, unique, fantastical yet realistic cat patterns.

Now your run-of-the-mill everyday cat which you worked to earn will have something entirely unique to it, at least in theory. If not entirely unique, pretty dang close! This concept should also never aesthetically destroy a cat, unlike what piling on a mess of patterns and colors can equal. Your character, which you take on adventures, dress up, and create stories for can now easily be a design which is not and never will be anywhere else on the site!

While the exact layout of the shapes won't be entirely customizable, rerolling and breeding for them will allow for changing them. I do plan to have some leeway for customizability of the percentages while maintaining that unique aspect. Myself and the team can't wait to further refine this mechanic!

Asset Previews - Cobblestone Clearing

Design and illustration by Skazinbud

Here is a sketch of one of the backdrops, and I feel it really encompasses and impresses this new direction. Could not be happier with the skill and progress!

New Breed - The Prowler

Based off the Bengal cat, the Prowler is meant to resemble a normal, typical, run of the mill cat! Among all the wacky shapes and magical variations, a normal domestic feline is much needed.

It also caught my attention just how little shape and breed variance there is in the original three starter breeds; Shorthair, Snowfoot, and Ragdoll. This is a criticism we have received several times, and it is one I agree with.

The Prowler will be replacing Snowfoots as a starter breed.

This means that the Snowfoot/Prancer duo will not be immediately available at launch, but will be available at a later release post-launch. Sooner, rather than later.

It is my hope that this change will not only serve to better separate the Prancers and Bovines, but to give the domestic starter breeds some much needed variation!

As far as the Prowler mystic is concerned… all shall be revealed in due time! :)

Functionality Update?

To maintain transparency, last month I brought aboard a new dev team, CKCollab, as our long term partners in crime. They're here to see it through, maintain the game’s vision, and are as invested in the game’s long term success as I am!

As explained previously, restructuring has been for the good of the project, and of no ill will! We want this to be the best it can be.

My goal was to find developers who could take a more agile development approach to the building, as an agile process saves vital time, resources, and if something like a planned mechanic needs to change during the building process, it can be done in an agile environment without much pain or waste.

So, we threw the old cat creator algorithm out (a painstakingly not optimized application) and started from scratch on making something efficient and optimized.

None of this is easy to display, but how the generator has been built on the backend got a huge upgrade, including optimization which allows us to vastly scale up our current resolution (3000x3000) and still generate cats quickly. With some cutting edge optimization, our current numbers show that we can easily generate 12 million cats a day, which is frankly mind blowing. It currently takes 7 milliseconds for the system to generate a cat and 300 milliseconds to call the image up from the server. Current focus is on bringing that 300 down further. Speed wise, we did this all during a two week sprint. So… we're feeling confident!

We also refined the algorithm in this new architecture to allow for more freedom with how assets are placed. It sounds simple, but things like line breaking accents and transparent wings on a Moontail can now be done much easier.

All very important groundwork, but the frontend display is a bit of a mess, so it's difficult to show in its current state. From here though, the backend foundation and database is there to start building out system accounts, breeding, item collection, and fun battle mechanics, all of which we are working on one sprint at a time. Current goal for closed beta is still somewhere between late 2023 to early 2024.

Videos on functionality soon! A half-baked product can look very sloppy, so we want to be sure it's presentable first.

That all being said, PB has frankly never looked better with these new directions, and I'm so, so excited for its future.

To Summarize: We shared new many Fauna with a hone in on stylization, the updated cardinal gene, updated Bovines, white coverage, icon art and early UX/UI icon cards, the Prowler breed, and an update on the state of the backend.

What to expect next month: Any polished functionality displays, further development of front-end UI designs, and further asset updates.

[pawborough]

Hey everyone!

Thank you for the patience before this check in. There’s a lot of new and exciting things to share. First, a small announcement…

We’ve had some restructuring of our organization. Holly and Meteor, previous project owners, have taken an amicable leave from the project. I (Blue) have taken up the mantle of sole project owner and senior, and am working very closely with the rest of the team as its head. There is no bad blood! We concluded that this decision would best benefit the project going forward. All three of us are beyond excited for PB’s future and development! I vow to be a strong, central lead, and to help vitalize the vision of this project.

With that being said, the previous iterations of art, information, mechanics, and layouts shown here have functioned as proof of concepts, and it's our plan as the team to upgrade and improve upon things as we begin serious building. The last few months following the Kickstarter have been dedicated to extensive pre-production (so we don’t build something and then impulsively decide at the last minute that it doesn’t work, wasting precious time and resources.) I myself have also continued this conceptualizing with the team after being appointed head this month.

Simply: As lead, I will be making changes. In this update, I am presenting a few changes and potential iterations of the game’s UI and aesthetic. With a strong and centralized vision, it’s my hope to improve upon a lot of what was previously shown.

Gene Stylization

The previous color and gene system helped us conceptualize the process of mass coloring and designing a cat, but it left some to be desired. Patterns look very messy when slapped together with such stark borders, very few genes compliment one another with artistic synergy, and the potential for good looking cats could definitely be expanded upon. We’ve started experimenting with more complex looking patterns, and where those patterns fall, and it’s greatly benefitted!

These color experiments aren't final, and may be subject to palette changes. But they're a start with the new direction. 

All the colors will all be getting upgrades to accommodate this new style of rendering. And the genes, well, will be re-rendered following the direction seen here! My goal is to more realistically be able to represent what an average cat looks like—as this looks much closer to your average mackerel tabby—and to open the door for some real beautiful mythical renderings (starry pattern...?) I’d prefer if a randomly generated cat was, on average, something that’s nice to look at – so it’s my goal to try to push and guide the art and gene system in this direction!

I also want to establish more aesthetic synergy with the customization, giving users gene options to customize smaller aspects, such as the skin color or the ear fluff color, while not being overwhelming (or requiring too many color slots for breeding.) I want to design it so that you essentially can't get an "unusable" color combination. Not too little customization, and not too much as to be overwhelming, confusing, or difficult to breed with. 

Doing so will also open the door for potentially a larger color wheel, as our wheel still lacks. The original intention behind a smaller wheel was to allow for getting a "good" color combination easily, but I believe the solution to a problem like that is to retackle the different areas of customization. 

So, hold out for that!

It's also worth noting that our developers have figured out the "colored shading" problem, allowing for us to make the current plain black shading tinted based on the color it sits above. The next update to the generator should include this colored shading! More on the state of the generator available below... 

New UI/UX Direction Preview #1 - The Camp

Let’s face it, the old displays and mockups shared here may have been passable, but they were rudimentary and amateur. I did them on my own, but they were no way up to speed with the demands of web design. As intended, the development team has been expanded. I’ve been working with a seasoned UI/UX designer to develop and improve upon the mechanics we originally conceptualized, and to adapt my original design intentions.

Everything is subject to change as we move forward, and of course this is low fidelity (please excuse the work-in-progress nature!) But it gives a new concrete direction for where elements will be placed. Everything will also be formatted competently for mobile.

New UI/UX Direction Preview #2 - Cat Profile

Once again, low fidelity! There are still some aspects which need workshopping, such as the formatting for the text in the heritage and traits boxes, and we may experiment with the margins and spacing of each element, but the goal was to create a much cleaner web view, and we're getting there!

New UI/UX Direction Preview #3 - Cat Generator

This is the biggest change that I am workshopping right now. An experienced consultant on our team pointed out that dropdowns, while popular within our genre, are difficult for users on average. They’re outdated, and they’re harder for accessibility, intuitive design, and user flow. We have gotten user complaints and requests to help accommodate the dropdowns in the past, but why not make the whole process easier?

NOTE: The "review" tab will also be added to the mobile layout

The mobile version especially will have to be implemented and tested for design and usability. I'm still back and forth on moving the randomize and history buttons to the top in the web view, but for the mobile view it could not stay below due to being where a user's thumbs often sit, and potentially causing frustration while designing. I wanted to keep some consistency between the mobile and web layouts, and it does seem to mimic a sort of "back button" placement, but what do you as the community think?

As to when the cat generator will be updated: I’ve been wanting to do a big bang of an update with all the breeds that will be available at launch. With this overhaul, it will depend on the speed of artist production.

Other low fidelity mockups are currently being workshopped, including new user onboarding, breeding, and a potential “dashboard” feature for registered users which accommodates completed dailies, site news, and monitoring timers for functions like cooking!

Next, let’s take a look at some art the team has done this month!

Pixels

Icons

Illustrated by Hybridremmie on Instagram

Work in Progresses

Lastly, let’s look at some sketches this month!

Fauna concept: The Lupiné

Illustrated by fulemy on Instagram

Backdrops Experiments

Illustrated by Runeowl on Deviantart / snowfinchstudio on Instagram

Illustrated by skazinbud on Instagram

Illustrated by hybridremmie on Instagram

Woo, what a big drop! Things have started moving quite quickly, and I’m working day to night with my teammates to develop on schedule and deliver something amazing! So far, despite the setbacks, we are on track. I’ll come back with news on the building process next month.

AS A FINAL NOTE: With art production speeding up, we are working on backer companions/Fauna. This process consists of us emailing backers our concept sketches and waiting for input. Please watch your Kickstarter email if you have backed a design tier!

To Summarize: We shared the beginning of a new direction for genes, low fidelity UX/UI designs for the user’s Camp, the cat profile, and the cat generator. We shared pixel icons, a few rendered icons, and a collection of work in progress sketches!

What to expect next month: Further UI/UX previews, progress on build functionality, further asset renderings. 

[pawborough]

Hello all! Thanks for tuning into this month’s update! We’ve got a few things on the docket.

Asset Update - Snowfoots!

We’ve continued updating the cat assets to sport cleaner lines, better flipability, and match more in-line with our more recent illustrations.

It’s night and day with these guys! We’re thrilled to be giving them a fresh coat of paint.

The Guild - Preview Page

Leaders of a Guild will be able to import a custom emblem and edit the CSS boxes available! We’re so excited for this feature to help foster community storytelling and roleplay!

Want to play?

After trying it out for ourselves, we’re here to tell you all the battle mechanics as simply as possible, and give you the tools to try the combat system yourself with your friends!

If this is confusing and/or it’s your first time seeing or trying a game like this, we completely understand. By doing this, we are putting a lot of responsibility on you, the player, that would otherwise be on the software. We will try our best to supply pre-made components and a simple step-by-step instruction guide below.

If you want to try playing but still can’t understand everything, we recommend reaching out to a more experienced friend, or someone in our Discord, to help you out or play with you!

You need at least two people to play, and some dice! If you don’t have physical dice at home, try rolladie, or the Google dice roll function! Up to eight people can play with opposing teams of up to four!

Remember, if you’re playing with someone long distance, games are more fun if you’re faithful to the dice roll - no cheating!

Rules are below the cut!

If you’d like to build a character yourself, see the following steps:

Step 1: Roll for Statistics

You can do this by using dice to simulate how the software will choose your cat’s statistics. The software will have weighted outcomes for balance, and we simulate this with specific dice.

For this step, you will be rolling 2 12 sided dice (d12) and 1 6 sided die (d6). These outcomes will be your stat points. A statistic can have between 0-30 points.

You must roll these 3 dice 6 times, and record what number the dice equal to each time you roll.

If you get a 3 during one of your 6 rolls, you then must roll a four sided die (d4). This is to ensure it is possible to get 0-2. Count the following number for these rolls:

1 = 1 point

2 = 2 points

3 = 4 points

4 = 0 points

Your six roll numbers will fill in the following categories:

Roll 1 = Strength

Roll 2 = Sense

Roll 3 = Smarts

Roll 4 = Speed

Roll 5 = Savvy

Roll 6 = Stamina

Lastly, roll a 20 sided die (d20) and record the outcome 2 times. These rolls equal:

Roll 1 = Fortune

Roll 2 = Doom

Fill these numbers in the corresponding categories.

Now, count how many blocks you have for each category (excluding Stamina). These blocks are also known as dice or chances. Their official name is pending, but they equal the amount of times your cat has to succeed or fail for a single roll!

0 - 4 points = 1 die

5 - 9 points = 2 dice

10 - 14 points = 3 dice

15 - 19 points = 4 dice

20 - 24 points = 5 dice

25 - 29 points = 6 dice

30 points = 7 dice

Erase the dice you do not have from the sheet!

If you are playing at level 1, you are done.

However, if you wish to level up your cat to try the different battle mechanics, choose your class, then see the following:

Choose your class first.

After each level, you are given 10 stat points to distribute however you please among the 6 different statistical categories. This does not include Fortune and Doom.

For example, if you are going from level 1 to level 5, add 40 stat points to your character.

Add your stat points, then add the corresponding dice to the number your statistical category is at. Remember that the 6 categories all cannot go above 30.

Step 2: Choose a Class

Generally, your character’s class should depend on your statistics. The 5 classes are Warrior, Ranger, Medic, Thief, and Bard. Each class favors one of the statistical categories.

If your highest statistic is Strength, pick Warrior.

If your highest statistic is Sense, pick Ranger.

If your highest statistic is Smarts, pick Medic.

If your highest statistic is Speed, pick Thief.

If your highest statistic is Savvy, pick Bard.

If you have statistics that match in number, then pick whatever you like most of the two! If you’re playing with other people, it’s best that you do not have 2 of the same class on one team (a team equals 4 characters.) You may want to talk to the people you’re playing with to coordinate the classes of your teams.

However, this is just a guide. You can choose whatever class you please!

Step 3: Distribute Red and Green Dice

Depending on your class, certain statistical categories are poor or favored. Favored categories will have green dice, while poor categories will have red dice. Red and green dice are dice which give you guaranteed successes or critical successes, and red dice are dice which give your guaranteed failures or critical failures.

If this is confusing to you, that’s okay! It may make more sense when reading the combat outline. Simply follow the instructions:

If you are a Warrior, change 3 of your Sense dice to red, and 1 of your Strength dice to green.

If you are a Ranger, change 3 of your Strength dice to red, and 1 of your Sense dice to green.

If you are a Medic, change 3 of your Speed dice to red, and 1 of your Smarts dice to green.

If you are a Thief, change 3 of your Savvy dice to red, and 1 of your Speed dice to green.

If you are a Bard, change 3 of your Smarts dice to red, and 1 of your Savvy dice to green.

Note that if you do not have 3 dice to make red simply replace the amount of dice you have. For example, if you are a Thief with only 1 die in Savvy, then make that 1 die red!

If you are playing at level 1, you are done.

Otherwise, the amount of red and green dice you have in these categories will grow and shrink depending on level. See the following:

At level 1: Cats have 3 red dice in the poor statistic, and 1 green die in the favored statistic.

At level 3: Cats have 2 red die in the poor statistic, and 2 green die in the favored statistic.

At level 5: Cats have 1 red die in the poor statistic, and 3 green die in the favored statistic.

Class will also change to subclass once you are level 2 or above! See the next section for further details.

Step 4: Add Your Moves

If you are level 1, all 4 of your moves will already be planned for you. The moves you have are dependent on your class.

There are 5 basic move types:

 Melee damage: Roll Strength for the number depleting the target’s stamina. Each success equals 1 point. Must be one tile apart, and the target must roll Speed for a chance to miss. Cannot hit diagonally.  

 Range damage: Roll Sense for the number depleting the target’s Stamina. Each success equals 1 point. Can hit up to six tiles apart between the two parties, cannot hit only 1 tile apart, and the target must roll Speed for a chance to miss. Can hit diagonally.  

 Dodge: Increases the amount or type of dice in the next Speed roll the user does.  

 Heal: Roll Smarts for the number added to the target’s stamina. Each success equals 1 point. Can hit diagonally.  

 Status: Affects the amount or type of dice for any and all rolls. Placement limitations depend on the move. Stackable over multiple turns.

Level 1 Warrior

Strike - Roll for Melee damage

Shield - Change 1 die to green during next Speed roll

Bandage - Roll for Stamina restoration of oneself

Warrior’s Spirit - Add +1 green die to next Strength roll

Level 1 Ranger

Longbow - Roll for Range damage

Dodge - Change 1 die to green during the next Speed roll

Bandage - Roll for Stamina restoration of oneself Ranger’s Spirit - Add +1 green die to next Sense roll

Level 1 Medic

Bite - Roll for Melee damage

Hiss - Roll for Range damage

First Aid - Roll for Stamina restoration of either oneself or a target. Must be 1 tile apart from the target. 

Medic’s Spirit - Add +1 green die to next Smarts roll

Level 1 Thief

Slash - Roll for Melee damage

Dagger - Roll for Range damage

Hide - Change 1 die to green during the next Speed roll

Bandage - Roll for Stamina restoration of oneself

Level 1 Bard 

Taunt - Roll for Melee damage

Shout - Roll for Range damage

Protection - Change 1 die to green during the next Speed roll

Bard’s Spirit - Add +1 white die to all rolls for one round to the target. Can be used on any target regardless of distance. Cannot be used on oneself

If you are playing at level 1, you are done!

If your character is level 2 or above, your character will need to choose a subclass.

Subclasses solely affect a single, special move called a submove. Each subclass has a single submove, so each cat will only ever have 1 submove. This move replaces one of the four you already have, and will grow in power for each level. Each class has 3 subclasses with 1 submove each.

Warrior Subclasses:

A. Warrior of the Fang

B. Warrior of the Claw

C. Warrior of the Body

Warrior Submoves:

A. Fangs - Melee damage +1 white die to the Strength roll at level 2 At level 3, +2 white dice At level 4, +3 white dice At level 5, +4 white dice Replaces the move Strike

B. Claws - Melee damage Damage affects all enemies within a 12 space radius at level 2 At level 3, radius is 24 At level 4, radius is 36 At level 5, radius is 48 Replaces the move Strike

C. Bodyguard - +1 white die to next Speed roll used to dodge an attack provided said attack is Melee At level 3, +2 white dice At level 4, +3 white dice At level 5, +4 white dice Replaces the move Shield

Ranger Subclasses:

A. Ranger of the Rain

B. Ranger of the Wind

C. Ranger of the Clouds

Ranger Submoves:

A. Multi-arrow - Range damage +1 white die to Sense roll at level 2 At level 3 +2 At level 4 +3 At level 5 +4 Replaces the move Longbow

B. Dash - Gives the user 9 spaces of movement for 3 rounds at level 2

2 spaces at level 3

16 spaces at level 4

20 spaces at level 5

Replaces the move Ranger’s Spirit

C. Safeguard - +1 white die to next Speed roll used to dodge an attack provided said attack is Range At level 3, +2 white dice At level 4, +3 white dice At level 5, +4 white dice Replaces the move Dodge

Medic Subclasses:

A. Medic of the Heart

B. Medic of the Mind

C. Medic of the Soul

Medic Submoves:

A. Healing Kiss - Roll for Stamina restoration of oneself or the target. Must be 1 tile apart +1 white die to smarts roll at level 2 +2 at level 3

+3 at level 4

+4 at level 5

Replaces the move First Aid

B. Hospital - Roll for Stamina restoration of oneself or all allies within a 12 space radius at level 2

At level 3, radius is 24

At level 4, radius is 36

At level 5, radius is 48

Replaces the move First Aid

C. Necromedic - Heal by bringing a fallen (Stamina fully depleted) ally back with 1/3rd Stamina, siphoning said Stamina from an enemy

At level 3, 1/2 total Stamina

At level 4, 2/3rd total Stamina

At level 5, 100% total Stamina

Cannot be used if an ally has not fallen during the combat instance. At each use, user takes damage equal to half of the damage siphoned and healed. Limited use of 4 times per mission. Has no range limit for target for target. Replaces the move First Aid

Thief subclasses:

A. Thief of Shadow

B. Thief of Time

C. Thief of Space

Thief Submoves:

A. Shadowsneak - Add (not replace) +1 green die to the next speed roll at level 2

+2 at level 3

+3 at level 4

+4 at level 5

Replaces the move Hide

B. Go-getter - Puts the user first in initiative order for the next 2 turns at level 2

3 turns at level 3

4 turns at level 4

5 turns at level 5

Replaces the move Hide

C. Two-step - Allows the user to choose whether to attack or move first, as opposed to move, then attack

Lasts for 2 turns at level 2

3 turns at level 3

4 turns at level 4

5 turns at level 5

Requires a speed success roll to activate. Replaces the move Hide

Bard Subclasses:

A. Bard of the Night

B. Bard of the Day

C. Bard of the Dawn

Bard Submoves:

A. Screech - At level 2, all enemies within a 12 space radius have 1 red die replaced in their next roll

At level 3, radius is 24 and 2 dice are replaced

At level 4, radius is 36 and 3 dice are replaced

At level 5, radius is 48 and 4 dice are replaced

Replaces the move Bard’s Spirit

B. Sing - At level 2, all allies within a 12 space radius have 1 green die replaced in their next roll

At level 3, radius is 24 and 2 dice are replaced

At level 4, radius is 36 and 3 dice are replaced

At level 5, radius is 48 and 4 dice are replaced

Replaces the move Bard’s Spirit

C. Deafen - At level 2, all red dice are changed to white during the next roll of all allies within a 12 space range, and all green dice are changed to white during the next roll of all enemies within a 12 space range

At level 3, radius is 24

At level 4, radius is 36

At level 5, radius is 48

Replaces the move Bard’s Spirit

The spirit status moves also grow with level if they are not replaced:

At level 1: Class’s Spirit does +1 color die to the designated roll

At level 3: Class’s Spirit does +2 color die to the designated roll

At level 5: Class’s Spirit does +3 color die to the designated roll

Once you have determined your character’s statistics. class, level, potential subclass, and moves, it’s now time to get your teams together and battle!

A single cat square takes up 4 spaces. It is recommended that you place your cats randomly on the board, and that you have as many allies as there are enemies. Meaning, if you have two cats on the A team, put two cats on the B team!

Turn order is decided by the cat with the highest Speed statistic among the group. If two cats are tied for Speed, then automatic green or red dice in the Speed stat are calculated (cats with a green die in the Speed stat will trump a cat without a green die, and cats with a red die will fall below a cat without a red die.) If the Speed stat is still a tie, roll a D6 to determine who is above the other within the tie. Remember, odd numbers are outcome A and even numbers are outcome B.

A turn in combat takes 2 parts:

1. Move

2. Attack

A turn must take place in this order, move then attack, unless a move has been used to designate otherwise.

Movement depends on level:

Level 1 cats may only move 6 spaces

Level 2 cats may only move 7 spaces

Level 3 cats may only move 8 spaces

Level 4 cats may only move 9 spaces

Level 5 cats may only move 10 spaces

You do not have to move the full amount of spaces, and you do not have to move at all if you do not want to!

For diagonal movement, count the spaces horizontally and vertically! You may not move nor attack 6 full spaces diagonally, but you may move 3 spaces to the side and 3 spaces up (this is not the case for Range attacks, which can hit diagonally without the use of slope!)

Attack consists of any of the moves at your cat’s disposal.

Every time a cat is hit with a Range or Melee attack, they must roll to avoid the attack. Cats must roll a number above or equal to the number of damage that they are being attacked for. If this number is not met, all the damage hits!

Remember to always roll for Fortune and Doom before rolling for the outcome!

This is done by using a 20 sided die, and counting the roll as a success if the number is under or equal to the Fortune or Doom statistic. For example, if your Fortune is 15, you need a 15 or below to succeed. If your Doom is 20, you will always succeed at a Doom roll.

If you succeed on Fortune, replace a white die in your roll with a green die! If you have only red and green dice, replace a red die! If you have only green dice, do nothing.

If you succeed on Doom, replace a white die in your roll with a red die! If you have only red and green dice, replace a green die! If you have only red dice, do nothing.

For every roll for outcome, use the amount of six-sided dice that the statistic calls for, with the necessary red and green dice accounted for. A die landing on an even number equals a success, and a die landing on an odd number equals a failure.

For calculating red, green, and white dice, keep the following in mind:

White fail: 0

White success: +1

Green fail: +1

Green success: +2

Red fail: 0

Red success: -2

If you end up with a negative number during your roll, your cat takes damage equal to the negative number. If a cat rolls to attack and ends with a -1 roll, said cat will take -1 damage instead.

Or, if a cat rolls to dodge an attack but ends with a -1 roll, that -1 will be added to the damage taken from the attack.

You must always use an attack to end your turn.

To finish off this briefing on how to play, here are some valuable notes on experience from one of the team members that we tested with!

“If you decide to play with other people, you may choose to have one person work as a GM* and do all the dice rolling and math in-game. Having several people do it themselves can get confusing. If you find yourself in this role, here are some tips.

*GM is a tabletop RPG term that usually stands for game master. (If you've heard of a dungeon master from dungeons and dragons, it's the same thing.) Usually the game master is in charge of controlling non-player characters and the overarching story. However, for this, it's a little different.

1. Colored Dice

If you are using physical dice, I cannot recommend enough to make sure that your d6s (6 sided dice) are red, green, and white (or at the very least 3 distinct colors.) Remembering which one is which when they're all the same is a headache and a half. If you're using an online roller, using 3 separate tabs all with the same dice to keep them separate should do the trick.

2. Enemy Cats

The way we played was 2 teams of 3 cats, each of us controlling a cat on either team. Personally I think this is the best way to play, as one finds themself less caught up in actually winning and more focused on having fun playing a silly game with friends. However, you are welcome to control your cats any number of ways. You could have the GM control all enemy cats and players control their own cat, you could have two people play two teams of opposing cats; whatever you have the most fun doing!

#3 Fortune and Doom

This is easy to forget in the beginning. Whenever ANY cat rolls dice for ANY reason you HAVE to roll for Fortune and Doom first. Have 2d20 (two twenty sided dice) that are green and red (or at least different colors) on hand at all times. It will become second nature to you by the end of the game. Attacking? F&D first. Dodging? F&D first. Healing? F&D first.

#4 Character Sheets

If your character sheets are on physical pieces of paper, it's most useful to have them displayed where you and their player can see. You will both need to check these sheets frequently, and needing to ask: "What's your fortune? How many strength dice do you have? What's your class again?" Becomes annoying for both parties.

#5 Roleplaying

This is totally optional, however I highly recommend it. Talking about how your cat is stricken with grief because their teammate died when they missed their last attack roll is half the fun. Give them backstories! Give them relationships! The world is your oyster.

Final notes:

I personally did not test tile functions and cats above level 1. I plan to in the future, but if you decide to play this, let us know how it goes! Please, please, PLEASE tell us everything that happened if you do this yourself. We want to know both the drama and what technical issues you ran into. Show no mercy in ripping different mechanics apart! This is how we learn! Thanks for reading! Have fun!”

Now, knock eachother out!

To Summarize: We shared the improved renders of the Snowfoot breed, a preview page of what Guilds will look like, and a breakdown of what we are testing so you can play for yourself!

What to expect next month: Continuation of asset and development production.