#on-site testing

[humanoidhistory]

Computer room at the Nevada Test Site.

(National Archives)

[vintagelasvegas]

Wasp Prime. 3 kiloton air-dropped detonation at Nevada Test Site, March 29, 1955.

National Nuclear Security Administration, Nevada Site Office.

[puzzled-artist]

(Affection) Galleon is pretty idk

This piece went up earlier this week on patreon! If you like my stuff and want to support it is the best place to do so!

[mysteryanimator]

didnt realise i could post this in full, enjoy >:D

[pawborough]

January Check In

Hello, all!

Happy update day, catfolk! We apologize for the late update, but we wanted to share the Beta dates with you in this update. We took extra time to ensure the dates were accurate without risking something not being ready in time or causing burnout for our team. We’ve done quite a bit of internal assessment on the pros and cons of letting ~2,000+ people into the game. 

Our most pressing thought was how to reconcile needing to continue working on key features while getting valuable feedback and play data on all that we already have. There was a lot to consider, in reputation, timeline, and team morale. We did not want to give the wrong impression that we felt anywhere close to a done game, but we have a lot of high fidelity mechanics and playability to share which need high population testing regardless. We’ve finally settled on rolling our sleeves up and opening to testers. At the start, we’ll provide a comprehensive breakdown of everything we’re planning to add over the months of the test, and continue our monthly check-ins on our progress. We’re ready to grind, and we hope you are too! And in many ways, it will be much nicer to get the comprehensive mass testing whenever we have something new to roll out!

We hope you will all agree that this update was worth the wait, as we have exciting news to share with you today, along with our most exciting news yet! :)

Accessory Progress

We are proud to announce that we have 47 unique accessories, altogether with 564 color variations. 

We have just about reached the edge of our odyssey in the first production run of accessories. After 8 months of practice and training for our fledgling team, we’ve improved immensely at our pipeline. What has previously taken us months now takes a matter of weeks. We have one more backer accessory to develop, and any additions in the near future will be small, simplistic items in comparison to our full sets, but I’m very proud of the team for how far we’ve come, and the marvel of quality they produce in good time.

This month’s new progress includes:

Frog Friends

Illustration by Remmie, sponsored by Hag

Protogear Recolors

Recolors by Emma

New decor

We’ve also been busy with decors. 

Argh, matey! 

Macaws by Jersopod, cannon, barrel and newspaper stack by Giulia and Remmie

In addition, style compliant sketches of the original rose decor!

Sketches by Remmie

Archetypes

We’re here to introduce a very exciting mechanic that has been in the works since our initial overhaul. It’s one of my personal favorite concepts, and the primary motivation behind how we’ve structured the cat design system.

Introducing… cat archetypes!

Archetypes are a specific combination of traits which, when fulfilled, mark the cat’s profile with a badge and reward the user as an achievement fulfillment. (If the cat’s traits are changed, the badge will be removed. Cats may fulfill multiple Archetypes simultaneously.)

For example, this badge means the cat fulfills the Ruby archetype, a badge which requires the cat to have the color Ruby in all slots.

Examples of the Ruby archetype include:

To give examples of the specificity, other Archetypes include for example “Leopard,” which must have the following to comply:

A Yellow range Leopard overcoat

Light Greyscale or Light Yellow undercoat

Yellow or Greyscale Claws

None for the second accent

Here are some Leopards!

Owning these cats will give the user rewards, sometimes completely custom to the Archetype. 

What we hope to achieve with this system is a greater incentive to think creatively within the restrictions of our cat builder, and to reward our players for intentioned play in collecting, breeding, and designing a variety of cats. After all, it is the core of the game!

And with each new addition of colors or patterns, we’ll release an onslaught of new Archetypes! We plan to introduce a healthy amount of them, some easy to get, and some harder depending on genetic obtainability and the obtainment method.

This system is already up and running on our servers, and is in its infancy. We’ll get a lot of data from testing it out!

Originally, this system was on the backburner while we focused on bigger picture mechanics, but we’ve fast tracked it so we can bolster and better encourage casual play while the Guild system is still in its preliminary beta state. 

Pelt System

Perhaps the feature we are most excited to see in use and tested is the Pelt System, which we briefly introduced in the 2024 November Check In. There is a frankly insane amount of functionality behind this feature, which includes autonomous user decision and interaction every step of the way. 

First, we were able to implement dynamic layering. This means that Unclipped (top layer) pelts can actually sport layers which are placed behind the cat automatically. Valuable uses for this feature include the inside of sleeves, backs of hoods, and items which you would otherwise always want to go behind anything it’s stacked above.

Users can view their pelts already submitted, see their submission progress, choose to submit more to the pelt, choose to print their pelt themselves, choose to list pelts for buyers to print on demand, and view their pelts on any cat.

There is also a draft system which allows users to store information they aren’t ready to submit yet. 

Users can list pelts as a print-on-demand resource, and are able to control how many copies they will allow to be printed. 

All prints will require a tax which will be dependent on the coverage %, calculated based on the amount of pixels that cover the canvas. This means that small pelts, like a hat or a monocle, will take only a small tax!

AND we have a rudimentary tagging system going as we experiment with this feature! Big news! Once we iron out the kinks, we’ll be able to roll out user filtering and tagging of other content, such as cats or forum posts.

And drumroll please…

As teased at the beginning of this update, we are overjoyed to announce the Closed Beta dates!  Early access launches on February 3rd, with the regular Closed Beta starting on February 6th!

During the Closed Beta, you’ll have the chance to experience many new and polished gameplay features, exciting customization options, and the now refined economy! We encourage all testers to not only find any potential bugs and ui improvements, but also to provide feedback and suggestions on all of our game features and our economy!

All 253 Early Beta, 1940 Beta and Kickstarter codes have been generated, and we will begin sending them out shortly over the next day.

In the coming week, we’ll put out writings on our expectations early on and the features roadmap that we’re currently staring at. We can’t wait to see you all in Kotemara soon!

To summarize: We shared decors, Protogear recoloring, Frog Friends, pelt system showcase, archetypes and closed Beta dates.

What to expect next month: Further asset and development updates. Check-ins for how closed Beta will be going.

[yamada-ryo]

yamada ryo

nyancrimew

[burgerpossum]

Check out this sign that hangs above my bed its pretty cool I found it outside like 6 years ago

[frutiflux]

A grin that runs in the family ⭐️

[doodlebeeberry]

[sparklecarehospital]

Also we picked out a release date. It is sooner than you guys think

[mudwerks]

(via CLOUD DANCER - Pulp International)

The above photo shows model Anna Lee Mahoney, aka Lee Merlin, wearing a mushroom cloud outfit. She was a dancer at the Copa Room in Las Vegas, and this photo was shot during the series of detonations at the Nevada Test Site codenamed Operation Plumbbob, which took place between May 28 and October 7, 1957

[andrevascreencaps]

[waytray]

the cutest little viktor keychain and jayvik standee by Kay-n-Kit! this is the first time i've heard of ghostshelf.shop , i wonder if they ship outside of russia!

[pawborough]

February Check In

Hello, all!

Closed Beta's been open for nearly two weeks now and we’ve been busy at work, and excited to share with everyone some of our progress!

First, let’s look at some art!

Gilded Helm Recolors

We are currently working on the Gilded Helm's recolors, here are some previews!

Recolors by Emma.

New icons

We’ve been busy with icons!

Take a look at the renderings for our eye type and eye palette metamorphic items—lenses and prisms!

We also have the white marbles ready, which allow you to adjust the white coverage of your cats.

Moreover, we’ve created icons for our various shufflestones, which change a cat’s colors to completely random ones or to colors within a specific range.

Last but not least, we have several new food and supply icons ready!

Eye prisms, Shufflestones and marbles by Hydde. Food and supply items by Remmie, Tybaxel, and Nik.

New decor

We also made some progress on decor!

WIP roundable by Remmie and Giulia.

Development Check In

See the initial UIs for our in-development item database and achievement system for archetypes!

Archetypes, as introduced in our January update, are a specific combination of traits which, when fulfilled, mark the cat’s profile with a badge and reward the user as an achievement fulfillment. Below are the initial UI for the achievement part of this mechanic.

Browse through all available items in the game with our item database. Filter by category, rarity, color, or obtainment method to find exactly what you're looking for. Whether it's food, supplies, or metamorphics, everything is at your pawtips!

How is Beta going?

We’ve had a great time with Beta! Over 1100 users signed up! 

While we did have server issues, we opted for optional  maintenance downtimes that lasted between 1 to 5 minutes each to implement solutions. But the server did not and never did crash, which we are very happy about. 

Halfway into the first week, we found a way to optimize, and since then the server has only had issues when we deploy fixes, which is expected during the application’s infancy. As we grow, deployments won't have these consequences, and patches will come out in big batches rather than small deployments. But it works for now as we make steady progress.

We do really enjoy this environment of testing. The amount of QA we get from the test is huge in helping us crack down on issues, and it's monumental in us improving the application. For the first two weeks of Beta, we did a lot of straight grinding to whittle down on the biggest issues, and we're very excited to get back to this pace. The energy has been a blast and a half, and we're happy with the progress we're making.

As we planned, we're doing less in the next two weeks before March. Our developers are taking a brief reprieve, and we’ll be making small updates in the meantime, but not nearly as frequent as the first two weeks of the test. 

Myself (Blue) also needs a few days of rest, and I greatly appreciate the patience with our planned catnap. 

But Beta has been fun as we make progress. That's a huge uplifter! There are a lot of ways in which development can feel thankless, demoralizing, or frustrating for the team. But the engagement from users and the community's joviality has lifted our spirits significantly. It’s great to feel so excited to keep working!

And the feedback has been juicy! There is a lot of very thoughtful criticism that has been sent for us to really sink our teeth into. We couldn't ask for anything better. This dedication will help us improve the application, and we love the time and energy put into feedback tickets. We care a lot about them, and value how much a user must care to send them.

Our projection of running through the summer is holding true based on our progress. We expect to see a very different application by the end of Closed Beta, and one which we’ll listen to the community on with how it's feeling. As we promised, we will not be moving into Open Beta until it feels good and we’ve gotten through our list of update priorities. 

The biggest thing we've learned since the Closed Beta launch is to be more proactive and prepared with our communication. We apologize for the ways we have fumbled in making sure information is readily accessible, sensible, and concentrated, and for not adequately relaying both our intentions and easy instructions for users. We have learned, and we take responsibility for the initial frustration. We deserved the criticism. Thank you for expressing your concerns to us, and we'll employ everything we have learned going forward.

To summarize: We shared decors, Gilded helm recoloring, icons, item database and closed Beta update.

What to expect next month: Further asset and development updates. Check-ins for how closed Beta will be going.

[yamada-ryo]

MITSUBISHI QKG-MP38FK SPOTTED