Save Wandering Cats (Meow)

Title
Outdoor 1
Outdoor 2
Indoor

Inspiration

This video game aims to bring people's attention to the proliferation of stray cats, and it is suggested that cat lovers could adopt stray cats instead of buying them.

All members of our team are cat lovers. Sometimes, we find videos from the media of poor stray dogs and cats abandoned by their owners. Those poor little creatures have to survive in poor conditions because there is no one to take care of them. Whenever we saw such videos, we unconsciously feel sad deeply in our hearts. Inspired by this, we developed this little game. We hope that players can discover the loveliness of small animals through this game so that people can realize that animals are good friends of human beings. We believe people and animals should live together peacefully, and we should treat kittens and other animals well. We advocate the core concept of adopting instead of buying and giving every small animal a home.

What it does

In this video game, the player can control a character to capture different stray cats in the city and bring them back home. In the process of catching cats, they can experience the joy of chasing, exercise their agility, and feel the joy from the heart while adopting cats. The UI and music of the whole game are made by our team members, so we hope that the cute cats and cheerful tune will make the players happy to promote the adoption of homeless cats in this way.

How we built it

We build this game using the Godot engine.

Except for the starting page, there are two main scenes in Save Wandering Cats.

The first scene is the character's home, where he lives with the cats he caught. However, there is a limitation on the number of cats you can own. The character could go out to catch more cats and bring them home by interacting with the door on the right.

The second scene is the city street. There would be obstacles generated randomly on the street. The characters will be blocked by the obstacles but not the cats. When the character reached the cat and pressed space, there is a chance for the cat to flee. Each time the cat flees, the cat head in the upper-right of the game will reduce by 1. When all the cat heads are used up, the character could catch the cat for sure next time. The new cat caught by the player would appear in his home if the limit of the cat number is not reached.

Challenges we ran into

In the process of making the home scene, we ran into a problem that the cats would collide with each other and push the player away, which turned out to be very funny. Also, implementing reading and writing data from the local files took us plenty of time. And in the outdoor scene, the movement of the cat was also very tricky, but we managed to solve these problems in the end.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Most of the teammates are new to Godot, but we managed to complete a small game within the 24-hour limited time. The music and UI are completely made by ourselves, and we are very pleased by what we are able to accomplish in this short period of time. For the in-game content, we are able to turn the diversity and fun component that we have imagined into reality. The part we are most proud of is the free movement of the player and the cat while capturing the cat is still challenging. In the end, we are proud to say that we made a fun little game, and the game is smooth without stuttering.

What we learned

From the production of the game, we have learned how to make free character movements, how to make neatly organized the layout of the page, and how to make an acceptable AI for the cat. Throughout the production process, we have built a tighter team together, and we have learned a lot of new knowledge and mastered them.

What's next for Save Wandering Cats

We hope to add more cat breeds, more different levels,s and tools that can be used for rescuing cats in the next stage to increase the fun of the game. We will also design the functions of taking care of cats in the home, such as feeding, taking him out, bathing, etc. This not only increases the diversity of the game, but also introduces the knowledge of cat raising to players, how to properly raise cats, and treat them with care.