Poor little stray Vicki is a void kitten who has just been adopted into a busy apartment building, ruled over by the resident tabby, Queen Kara III. She will have to prove herself by helping the other cats living in the building to build trust with Kara and be accepted as one of the clowder. Will you help her making this place her new home? (Based on a true story.)
\nA Voiding Your Problems is a collection of 6 simple catty minigames where you need to prove your worth to the other cats.
\nIncluded are the following games:
\nThe game is optimised for both mobile and desktop gameplay, you can use your touchscreen or your mouse and keyboard shortcuts (arrows, A-D, 1-0 digits, X, space) to control the minigames.
\nIt has been tested on recent versions of desktop Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Edge and mobile Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Samsung Internet. It requires WebGL2, support for which is fortunately ubiquitous by now.
\nAll code and art assets were made by myself, Attila Horvath.
\nI would like to thank my cats, Kara and Vicki for the inspiration, as well as our neighbours’ and friends’ cats.
\nSpecial thanks for Greggman of WebGL2 Fundamentals for the excellent guides and explanations regarding WebGL.
\nAnd an extra special thanks for Giulia Adde for all her love, input, support and patience during some long nights of coding. Also, for her help with the art direction and iconography.
\n","source":"attilahorvath/catgame","stars":0,"comments":[{"at":410387152,"author":"stimhub","login":"stimhub","gh":111187790,"text":"Some really fun little minigames, captured in a sweet story about cats fighting for dominance in an apartment building. Some text is a little hard to read due to colour contrast, and it appears quite slowly. It might also help the theme and narrative setting to include cute music or sound, but totally understandable to exclude them since they take up a lot of space. Fun!
\n","games":["Swing A Cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":410595464,"re":410387152,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Yes, my aim this time was to include as many minigames as I could within the space limit, so I didn’t have any capacity left for sound or music. I’ll definitely try to learn more about the Web Audio API for next time so hopefully I could include at least something basic.
\nI see what you mean by the text not always being legible, I thought it was cute to have it the same colour as the cat you’re talking to but not all of them worked well on the background unfortunately. Also agree on the text speed being on the slower side but I found that hard to balance. Definitely some things to improve for next time.
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":410419851,"author":"Almut Kieffer-Jones","login":"mxlle","gh":6170306,"text":"The graphics and texts are ameowzing 😸
\nCool idea to integrate phone vibration, though it was applied a bit too much in my opinion, especially during Meowsweeper.
\nThe Gameplay is nice, all my favorite mini games in one place and with a cute presentation
\n","games":["Kittens United"]},{"typ":1,"at":410595107,"re":410419851,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Haha yes, the idea for the vibration came kinda late in the dev cycle after everything was finished and so I just sprinkled it everywhere where it sort of made sense because I thought it was cool (I’ve never used it before myself and it’s just too easy to resist).
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":410629442,"author":"smhaaker","login":"smhaaker","gh":10542292,"text":"A nice collection of minigames. I assume this took a lot of work. Good job!
\n","games":["CatNFish"]},{"typ":1,"at":410735544,"re":410629442,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Haha yes, especially because I started kind of late into the compo so there were definitely some late night coding sessions before the deadline. Totally worth it for the cats though!
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":410642133,"author":"Anthony Cosgrave","login":"anthonycosgrave","gh":1410114,"url":"https://imtoospexy.com/","text":"I really enjoyed the overall humour and the minigames are all brought together well using the building and windows like a main menu. On that light purple-ish background the text was difficult to read at times, but that’s a very minor issue. Some audio would definitely add to the overall game, but well done!
\n","games":["Chickpocalypse Meow"]},{"typ":1,"at":410735431,"re":410642133,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Yes, I wanted the text to always be the same colour as the cat it belongs to but I can see it’s sometimes hard to read, depending on the screen settings as well. Unfortunately I couldn’t fit any audio this time because I wanted more minigames to take up space instead. Some things to focus on next time.
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":410756267,"author":"xem","login":"xem","gh":1225909,"text":"Love the graphics, ambiance, and ambition to make these 6 cat-related mini games. Impressive. Only missing a bit of sound.
\n","games":["I got up on the wrong foot"]},{"typ":1,"at":410763204,"re":410756267,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Glad you liked it! I wanted to squeeze in as many minigames as I could so then unfortunately I didn’t have any space left for audio. Maybe next time.
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":410961071,"author":"Jonathan Vallet","login":"jonathan-vallet","gh":5329099,"text":"🎮 Impressive to have 6 mini-games in only 13kB, wrapped in a small story! I couldn’t finish due to time. For Moewsweeper and Moewsterpiece, maybe using left/right click for the different actions would make them easier to handle.
\n","games":["Witchcat"]},{"typ":1,"at":410990858,"re":410961071,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Thank you, that’s good feedback. I was mainly focused on making sure it plays well on mobile touchscreens so I haven’t considered the mouse left / right clicks which would be nice indeed. There are some keyboard shortcuts though that can be used in the games.
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":411029522,"author":"Homer Dilpleu","login":"HomerDilpleu","gh":66157330,"text":"I liked the animation at the begining of the game and was impressed by the number of minigames you have implemented! I think you have spent a lot of time to create all these games. Congrats!
\n","games":["Wash the cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":411081870,"re":411029522,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Thank you so much, I definitely had some long nights close to the deadline to get everything done but totally worth it to include all the kitties!
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"typ":2,"at":411047013,"author":"Michelle Duke","login":"mishmanners","gh":36594527,"url":"mishmanners.info","twitter":"MishManners","text":"Loving the paw print pointer. There are LOTS of mini-games… maybe focus on a couple and have more levels for each, so you don’t get stuck playing one thing. For the Mahjong: it’d be great if it can tell the player if they have run out of moves.
\nI like the cat pixel themes, probably a little too much going on though with all the floating words, pixels, emojis etc.
\nAdd some fun music to make this game a little more immersive. There’s a bit of scrolling issues and the game doesn’t resize to mobile.
\nAmazing you fit so many games however into 13kB. Nice job on your GitHub README too.
\n"},{"typ":1,"at":411735321,"re":411047013,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Thank you so much for the expert review and also for featuring the game on stream! Watching the recording was really helpful, I can see some issues that cropped up.
\nThe levels are randomly generated for every game except for Sudocat and Meowsterpiece, so you get a fresh experience each time for all the rest. The Meowjong was supposed to be always solvable but it turns out it’s possible to result in an unsolvable layout sometimes, which was wholly unintended.
\nIt looks like your screen has a very large refresh rate which sadly caused some animation issues.
\nMobile support was a top priority from day 1 and it looks and works great on every actual mobile device I could get my hand on. However, changing the browser view while the game is running is not implemented because it would’ve been way more effort for something that just doesn’t happen under normal circumstances.
\nThere was no space left for any audio unfortunately because of all the minigames included but I’ll make sure to include some next time!
\n"},{"at":411048272,"author":"Elias Ku","login":"eliasku","gh":3038174,"url":"https://eliasku.win","twitter":"eliaskuvoice","text":"Great game! :) I really liked that there are so many mini-games built into it. It took me about 5 tries to finally beat the mahjong level - it was really engaging! It’s the kind of game you can easily get lost in for a long time.\nIt would be awesome if the game worked offline. That way, you could take it on trips and enjoy all the mini-games during vacation when there’s no internet. Good job! 👍
\n","games":["Cat Survivors"]},{"typ":1,"at":411083547,"re":411048272,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Thank you, the offline play is a really great suggestion, I’ll look into how to get that working next time!
\nSorry to hear that the Meowjong was a bit too hard. I am just randomly drawing the tiles to fill in each position so sometimes you can end up with a very easy layout and sometimes it’s very hard or even impossible to solve, depending on the mood of the RNG at the time. Some smarter algorithm could’ve been implemented there to even the difficulty but I didn’t have the space or time to do it before the deadline unfortunately.
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":411701353,"author":"Daivan Trinh","login":"daivan","gh":1457778,"text":"I cant believe you fit so many games in 13KB!
\nI played most of them but even if you just made one of them, that would have been impressive.
\nGreat job!
\n","games":["Run from the Black Cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":411716239,"re":411701353,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Thank you so much, my concept this year was to fit as many minigames in as possible, even if they’re very simple. They all use the same components, same sprites, same grid logic with clicking on the cells, etc., with only the game rules being different, which allowed for cramming them all in. Initially I wanted even more (one for each window in the apartment block) but ran out of time and hit the space limit.
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":411752002,"author":"Magnus Lindh","login":"MagnusLindh","gh":26601704,"text":"The games are fun but Meowmory is hard to play because of the blurry sprites. Also the font is hard to read and sound is missing, but overall a solid entry.
\n","games":["Don't forget to feed the cat!"]},{"typ":1,"at":411771417,"re":411752002,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"That’s valuable feedback, thank you!
\nThe sprites are blurry because they are very low-res (16x16) and had to be further crunched a lot (with the PNG palettes, etc.) to fit into the size limit. I think the issue with the font is mainly that there isn’t enough contrast with the background colour, depending on the cat you’re talking to because I wanted the letters to match their fur colours. Perhaps always having a different background or black outline for the letters would’ve helped.
\nAudio is unfortunately missing purely because of the size limit this time.
\nThese are definitely areas to focus in the future.
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":411790223,"author":"Andrew Higson-Smith","login":"ElementalSystems","gh":4255763,"url":"www.elementalsystems.co.za","text":"I like the graphics - amazing you packed so much in - fun minigame series
\n","games":["Wake the Cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":411804802,"re":411790223,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Glad you liked the game and appreciate the comment!
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":411864197,"author":"Jasper Renow-Clarke","login":"picosonic","gh":26137750,"twitter":"femtosonic","text":"I liked the game
\nAll the mini games were fun
\nGood re-use of sprites for all the games, cute pixel graphics
\nEnough scope to keep you entertained for ages
\n","games":["Mochi and the midnight escape"]},{"typ":1,"at":411888210,"re":411864197,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Really glad you liked it, thank you so much for the review!
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":411957036,"author":"sodium ","login":"shiturstupid","gh":208161057,"text":"i loved it!! the little intro was so nice and the paw cursor too. great job! (i did face a little problem figuring out how to play) but once i understood the game is super interesting :D
\n","games":["The Laser Cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":411962345,"re":411957036,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"I’m really happy you enjoyed it! Yes, the paw cursor seems to be popular, I’m glad to hear that because it was just a random small idea I put into the game in a few minutes but seems to be well worth it.
\nSorry you had a bit of trouble understanding how to play, I will take that into account and will try to make things clearer in future games. I was very familiar with the minigames included here so I think I didn’t really consider that others might not know how they work.
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":412001336,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"This game is GREAT and so cute! loved learning about all the real world inspirations! This was like a little cat based Wario Ware and all the games were well implemented…. there were a few I was bad at (because im bad at those games normally anyways) but it was nice that you gave the user some choice in which games they wanted to play!
\nOnly thing id add is music, but you’re right up against the 13k limit so I understand why there is none. The large quantity of games is impressive enough on its own.
\nGood luck in the competition, hope this game gets the love it deserves!
\n","games":["BlackCat_Hacker"]},{"typ":1,"at":412002725,"re":412001336,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Thank you so much for the lovely review!
\nYes, I didn’t want to force anyone to play the minigames in any particular order so you can choose them freely. There is a little outro scene if you have the patience to finish them all though (similar to the intro scene but confirming that you managed to make friends with all the cats in the building!), but I don’t think many players have seen that to be honest as it can take quite some time to solve everything.
\nAudio will be definitely on my list of priorities for the future, I agree it would make a huge difference! I was considering maybe removing one of the minigames to make room for some simple tune instead but I didn’t like the tradeoff and ultimately ran out of time anyway. Next time though!
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":412027584,"author":"Aleksey Litvinov","login":"mightyaleksey","gh":5006221,"url":"https://jsalterego.im/","text":"The graphics is so cool! And I really like that you made a custom font to match the vibes and the overall style! And the animation is awesome!
\nThe game itself feels like a set of popular mini games with the story, which is nice and feels great to play. Was surprised regarding how many games you put into it.
\nHopefully, you can add some music as a follow up :) Good job!
\n","games":["Cats Puzzle"]},{"typ":1,"at":412028365,"re":412027584,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Thank you for the nice review, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
\nI will definitely add audio next time, I agree it would be a great improvement.
\nThanks for playing!
\n"},{"at":412032782,"author":"João Lopes","login":"lopis","gh":2715751,"url":"www.jlopes.dev","text":"That’s a fun one. Impressive that you crammed so many classics into this entry, on top of adding all the lore around it.
\nSome things I would improve… The text was often hard to read due to its color, so try to increase the text contrast. I’m really missing some music and sound effects. Sometimes i would accidentally tap, and skip the whole dialog. I think tapping should first reveal all the text before skipping. The icons were all very blurry for me, which you can fix with context.imageSmoothingEnabled = false.
Thank you so much for the helpful feedback!
\nI agree that the text could have more contrast, the issue is that I wanted the text to be the same colour as the cat you’re talking to which can clash with the background depending on their fur colour. Maybe the text should always have a fixed high contrast background or a black outline around the letters.
\nUnfortunately I didn’t have any space left to include audio this time.
\nGood point on how to handle the dialog skipping better, I’ll be sure to implement it like that next time!
\nThe sprites are blurry because they are very low-res due to the size constraint. I was experimenting having them rendered pixelated rather than smooth during development but I didn’t like their look too much either like that. They get blurrier the larger the screen though, looks a bit better on smaller screens, like phones I was targeting as well.
\nThanks for playing!
\n"}],"results":{"theme":{"rank":78,"min":1,"score":3.24,"max":4.24},"innovation":{"rank":56,"min":1.2,"score":3.08,"max":4.03},"gameplay":{"rank":47,"min":1.18,"score":3.24,"max":4.37},"graphics":{"rank":76,"min":1.6,"score":3.2,"max":4.56},"controls":{"rank":27,"min":1.6,"score":3.64,"max":4.45},"primary":{"rank":94,"min":8.68,"score":16.4,"max":24.89},"label":"Overall"}}