Catzumi

Real steps for your virtual pet.

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What is Catzumi?

Catzumi is the world's first virtual walking pet companion app! Catzumi helps you go from 0 to 18,000 steps a day, all while caring for the cutest virtual cat around.

Whether aiming for 1,000, 2,000, or even 18,000 steps a day, your feline friend will be there every step of the way!

No prior experience is needed – just lace up those shoes and let Catzumi guide you toward a purr-fect walking habit. You'll be feline fine in no time as you boost your fitness and discover your unique walking style.

Whether you're strolling for fun or fitness, you'll fall head over paws for walking with Catzumi!

Why Catzumi?

Encouragement: the game-like interface and adorable cat companion will keep you motivated to build a rock-solid walking habit.

Results: Developed by a walker just like you, Catzumi's methodology is constantly evolving to ensure long-term habit success.

 Growth: Feed your virtual kitty and watch it transform through playful appearances as you maintain your walking streak.

Your walking journey is completely free! Optional in-app purchases for personalized items are available to support Catzumi's ongoing development.

Building Catzumi

Catzumi’s built entirely in SwiftUI, from the simplest views to the mini-game. It supports devices starting with the iPhone 7 and iOS 15 because that’s my daily device and I do want to be able to use my app!

Anyhow, I had always wanted to switch to using RevenueCat for my other apps but I never actually took the dive before this Ship-a-ton. Hence, I took this perfect opportunity to read all the documentation and make all the necessary modifications to my project. I was thinking about adding subscriptions but I found no way to make it make sense, yet. So I settled with in-app purchases and I was even pleasantly surprised but how they were also integrated in RevenueCat.

Even though the purchasable items cost $5 each (ouch!), I’m willing to experiment and add new cheaper items in the future, like wearable items and decorations for $1!

Lessons

I don’t know how I even did this entire project in under a month. It spanned from August 10th to September 4th, at least 168.5 counted hours in total, that’s 7, full, days. A full week non-stop of making this game. I don’t even know if evenspent that much playing one game in my lifetime!

Having done and won Apple’s Swift Student Challenge four times, this was completely different. For the SSC, it was two weeks of creating something different, experimenting, and not knowing what the competition was up to. This time, I was seeing what others were making and it was fascinating. People are so talented, and I don’t even know if I’m in the same league as them. It’s hard to kick off Imposter’s Syndrome when talented people surround you on each side! Hey, at least I won’t be sad if I don’t get anything in the end, because at least I published a game I perhaps never would have found the time of opportunity to publish! And that’s just enough!

Long live this Ship-a-ton!

The Lore

Catzumi world. There, cats and humans lived together in harmony. Then, everything changed when the Fish Hurricane struck. Only the friendship between cats and humans could help clean up the streets filled with fish. And although their kindness is great, humans have a lot to walk before restoring things to normal. But I believe that together, they can march through the challenges.

The cats grow to love eating the fish, which fills them with affection. While it can be quite demanding, the days spent with your cat are full of smiles. Cute and adorable, the cat needs your care to grow and become a bigger part of your everyday life.

My Mission

Walking is fundamental and one of the most effective ways to stay active in daily life. Numerous studies cite it as being a key to weight loss and a healthier, more fulfilling life.

My ultimate goal is to encourage everyone to walk outside through the use of technology, the very thing that often motivates us to stay instead.

Continuous Improvement

Catzumi is committed to improvement, hand-in-hand with you, an active and fun community that grows larger every day. Additions are constantly made. Like walking, Catzumi doesn’t stand still.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of possible future features:

  • Achievements and badges.
  • Adaptive widget.
  • Companion watchOS app.
  • Levels and other mini-games.
  • Multiplayer friend quests.
  • Smart notifications.
  • Walking statistics.

It was hard not wanting to succumb to the temptation to build these features from the get-go, but time’s a valuable resource!

Inspiration

Here's the best for the end. My inspiration for the Catzumi are various, and quite often very obvious straight from the beginning.

Club Penguin, my favorite game ever, is the inspiration for the basis. The game’s main characters are penguins like they are cats in Catzumi. There are also many mini-games, in-game currencies, badges, catalogs with items to buy, and so many more inspiring mechanics that will one day make it to Catzumi.

The Dinosaur Game is quite evidently the inspiration for Catzumi’s mini-game in which the player and his cat zig-zag between trees in their forest walk.

Duolingo’s notifications, quirkiness, and streaks logistics are a major part of Catzumi’s core concept. In an ideal situation, Catzumi is to health what Duolingo is to language learning.

Minecraft’s app icon resembles Catzumi’s. This even gave me the idea to make a creeper-cat skin, but we’ll see! I’ll have to confirm the legality of course.

When designing the mini-game high-score view, my mind directly raced to Pac-Man, the mythical game with the controversial high-score story! I promise, there are no cheat codes in Catzumi.

This one’s obvious. Straight from the first copyright text you see till the flash news, the Pokémon references are non-stop, especially Pokémon Diamond, my second favorite game ever! And don’t even bother checking the blatant inspiration for the interface skin names and colors.

And finally, how can I not talk about Tamagotchi? The ultimate pet companion game. I used them as an example of simplicity, customization, and personality. Catzumi will never become like Tamagotchi, but if it’s going to build its niche, why not learn from the best in the business? You might also think that the names are vaguely similar sounding, Japanese-influenced perhaps. But I can assure you that I had thought about the ever more obvious: Catachami!

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