DEV LOG 001

1-29-2024

Grrrreetings and Salutailtions!

(I’m allowed to put animal puns in the dev logs too, right? Right!?)

I decided it might be helpful (and perhaps help with motivation too- which is always important to keep up!) to start keeping track of my work on Catsquerade via development logs. This is the first development log and will primarily focus on work done up to this point including early conception and assets made up to now.

GAME BACKGROUND:

Catsquerade began as a random idea of silly cats wearing masks and going to a ball. I wrote the idea down on November 21, 2023. The idea remained entirely untouched until January 7, 2024 when all of a sudden I started thinking of funny cat names. I re-opened the first note and wrote down a list (including “Purrtricia”, “Pawl”, “Fluffrence” and others). More ideas started to flow from there and I began brainstorming some potential characters. From there I dipped into the (rather intimidating) worlds of art, programing, and design and have begun piecing assets together all on my own.

A BIT ABOUT THE GAME DEV:

I’ve been a member of a few game development teams over the years- originally as a writer, then as a voice actor, and more recently as QA (editing, proofreading). I did this at first as a job, then as my career changed it got pushed to be more of a side passion thing- I really love playing games (especially visual novels!) and it’s neat to see things behind the scenes. 

Unfortunately, game development isn’t all successful launches, and several projects along the way were pretty bumpy or were trashed entirely. When a project is benched or fades away, all of the work that has been put in by all members of the team essentially goes up in smoke- poof. It’s really disheartening. 

For a while, I was enjoying another, slightly different form of content creation which was making fan dubs of one of my favorite manga series on YouTube. I made the videos alongside some really amazing voice actors- it was such a pleasure working with them! Unfortunately, a big lesson came when one of the videos was pulled down by a studio with rights to the manga and a strike was put on the channel. Even with an amazing team of passionate fellow creators, if you don’t own the origin material it can all be pulled out from under you at any time.

It didn’t seem clever to keep pouring hours of work and the efforts of my fellow voice actors into a video that could be yoinked away from us at any second, so I had to switch gears once again. After a bit of thought, I realized I still wanted to make stuff- stuff that, hopefully, other people might enjoy.

It seemed like all the signs were pointing towards getting back into game dev- but could I do it? Could I actually learn all the ropes and put all the pieces together? I decided I wanted to try solo deving. That way, if things didn’t work out and game dev at this level isn’t right for me, I wouldn’t be wasting the efforts of any fellow team mates.

I’m confident I can handle the narrative design, character design, and writing, as I have some experience with those before. My time as a voice actor may help a bit with implementing audio (music- voice acting isn’t on the table right now. Don’t want to get ahead of myself). I can edit pictures pretty easily, but art- art. I’m not an artist. I bought Clip Studio Paint Pro and am learning how to use it- but mmm. Yeah, art. Also programming. It’s all a big can of yikes. 

Anyways, it’s a learning experience! Thanks for being here to witness it haha.

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PROGRESS REPORT:

As of today, January 29, 2024, I have made the following things for Catsquerade:

WRITING:

- Rough design of five main characters (potential “catchelors”)

- one short scene (dancing with Lord Jefurry)

- basic game overview

GUI:

- Text box

- Sliders

ART:

- Two backgrounds (ballroom, letter CG- with partial text)

- Three (very rough) main character sprites (Lady Grey- with and without fan, Fluffy, Lord Jefurry)

- One side character sprite (butler cat w/ mask- open and closed mouth)

PROGRAMMING:

- Started a new Ren’Py file

- Player can set their name

- Player can select their “purrnouns”

- Letter CG has been partially added

SOME FAILURES:

Things that didn’t go too well in production.

- Tried to implement NVL mode in Ren’Py for the letter. Read the guide on Ren’Py over and over but could not for the life of me get it to switch smoothly between NVL and ADV. We’re gonna have to stick to ADV with some creative work-arounds.

SOME SUCCESSES:

Things to celebrate :)

- Made my very first background ever! Woohoo! Made it way too big lol- when I put it into Ren’Py it was zoomed in on the stairs. Had to resize it. But it’s there and working now. Who knew that stairs were so darn hard to draw? I have a long way to go before I can claim mastery of that perspective grid tool.

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GOING FORWARD:

Within the next few weeks, I’d ideally like to:

-Clean up the three main character sprites I’ve already made and give them sprite expressions (happy, sad, laughing, etc)

- Create the final two main character sprites

- Create the player character sprite (bust up and expressions)

- Potentially create different coloring options for the player character (artistically it can be done, but programming…. hmmmmm.)

- More backgrounds? Maybe a mirror for character creation (again- programming is the big block in the way of this) I’d also like a bar and some kind of courtyard or garden.

- Keep adding things to Ren’Py

- Make a main/home screen

- Make choice box images

- Write the darn game

- Script the written game for Ren’Py

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That’s all for now- thanks for stopping by and for supporting Catsquerade!