Early AccessAttract Mode
wfmag.cc \ 13series of random levels made up of handcrafted
individual pieces. Naturally. But even with that
design choice, the cats weren’t always your
firearms. “We originally wanted to consider using
cats like Pikmin,” Lewis says, “Throwing them to
manage enemies’ paths and work on destroying
elements of the environment, but giving the
player more agency and providing less stress
towards managing your cats won out.” Cats as
weapons, then.
A focus on testing has been a key aspect of
Cat Lady’s development, with its recent move
to Steam’s Early Access program another move
in bringing the game to the community to
help test it out along its
development path. With
balance so key to a game
like this, it’s definitely a
smart move to broaden
the range of people who
are actually playing it,
even before Cat Lady is finished. “We kind of
lucked out in that the Basement, the first area of
Grandma’s mansion, tested well at a mid-level of
difficulty for a vast majority of our early players,”
Lewis explains. “So we’ve been able to tune up
from there. But: throw in permanent upgrades
that enhance the abilities of Ally and her cats,
work up some starkly new enemy behaviours,
and play a bit with player rewards, and things
can change in an instant.”
A boon to Cat Lady is, of course, its bold and
beautiful visual style from aforementioned artist
Jake Fleming, a long-time friend of Lewis. “His
style is something he’s been developing in stills
and animation for a while now, and it worked out
well to develop into the low-colour, hard-lined
style that shines in what he’s doing in Cat Lady,”
says Lewis. “He’s always been a fan of limited
colour palettes since playing NES and Game Boy
games growing up. The
mixed ‘cute and weird’
aesthetics of games like
Kirby, River City Ransom,
Super Mario Bros. 3, and
the possibly lesser-
known game, Stinger,
are all easy childhood references explaining his
current work. Oh, and he loves cats.”
Finally, and because we have to spoil the party
every now and then, we have to ask: isn’t the
term ‘cat lady’ a pejorative? To our delight, Lewis
and the team have already considered the point
and offer a robust rebuttal. “It can be,” he says.
“But instead of harking back to the old trope
of the ‘crazy cat lady’, we wanted to instead
celebrate the updated mentality we see and
hear today: cats are cute and cool, we can’t get
enough of them, and we want everyone to know!
We hope the cute designs and personalities
of Grandma and Ally’s cats will shine and get
everyone else feeling the same way too.”
Ohhhh, ‘Ally Cat’ – we just got that.Early AccessAttract Mode
“We both grew up having
close relationships with our
respective grandmas” Naturally, boss fights make an appearance,
and are just as adorable as everything else
in the game. Only more difficultly adorable. The cats are used as magical
weapons, fitting given they are some
of nature’s most brutal killers. Really,
they are. Any cat owner will agree. Visuals are minimalist, but
bold at the same time.
A randomised shopping
experience means you won’t
be able to rely on the same
purchases every playthrough.