Cat Cafe Report, Mac Playtest Build, and New Content (Patreon)

So- first:  The demo at MEow Cat Cafe went pretty well!  My only real complaint was that I was so busy, I never got to spend much time with all of the awesome cats!

Of course, we ran into bugs.  For example: Over the past few years, we have been getting reports that Peace Island was prone to crash on 4k displays.  I had never seen the bug in-person, as Laura & I have never owned, nor had access to a 4k display.

Well - to put it bluntly:  we experienced it PLENTY of times, during the demo.  Thankfully, we had brought two of our own monitors - but having now seen this bug in action, we have a better idea of how we might address it.

Apologies for not streaming via our twitch - things just didn’t work out…

We FINALLY sent the project off to be built on Mac.  We should be hearing news within a couple of days.  We apologize for these continued delays, but over the past two weeks, we have been 100% focussed on getting the project ready for the aforementioned live demo.

In the process of getting that done, we have been able to bring the project a LOT closer to MVP & Closed Beta!  While the list of content required for the full game is probably several hundred items in length, we narrowed the stuff required for the Beta down to about 50 items, this past Monday. Since then, we’ve taken care of most of them and reduced the list down to 22 absolute must-haves.

We’ve added:

- Two more alpha interiors:  the first floors of the mayor’s house and the island school are now accessible, bringing the total to four. Three remain to be added for the Beta:  The library, the police station, and the utilities building.

- Proper driving poses & animation:  The cats now keep their paws on the wheel, when piloting a golf cart - It’s a minor thing, but makes driving a LOT more fun!

- Beta “Sneak Vision”:  This effect allows the player to get around in darker locations, and makes nighttime more navigable.

- Alpha missions for all exterior terrestrial NPC species:  Deer, Beaver, Geese, and Chickens all offer “placeholder” missions, meaning they are no longer just AI-driven window dressing!  We’ve yet to add the Seagulls & Crow, but they are next on our list.

- Too many other tweaks & fixes to mention:  From removing the indoor fog, to adding house numbers, to fixing literally thousands of textures, we’ve been crazy busy!

We will post an update a week from today, or when we get the Mac build done- whichever comes first!

Thanks again for everyone's patience, confidence, and support - we're SO close to our initial goal!