RevenueCat's own name is built around cats. Their awards are named Catvertising. Their trophy is called Shippy. And yet somehow nobody had shipped an actual cat game for Shipaton. That felt like an open goal.
The specific idea came from thinking about what cats actually do - not the internet meme version, but the real behaviour. Cats are efficient, they take the most direct route, they jump things humans wouldn't attempt, and they absolutely do not care about your obstacles. A delivery cat made perfect sense. The job requires speed and precision, the rooftops give you verticality, and the isometric perspective makes every jump feel deliberate in a way a flat side-scroller doesn't.
Monetization was designed into the game from the start rather than bolted on at the end. Ads appear between runs on the results screen - the one moment the player is naturally paused and not in flow. Watching an ad buys a continue or a coin bonus, so the exchange feels fair. The subscription removes ads and doubles earnings, which is a straightforward value proposition the player can evaluate after a few runs once they know they want to keep playing. We tried to make every RevenueCat touchpoint feel like it belonged in the game rather than interrupting it.
We are both computer science students. We have built tools, web apps, and systems before. We had never shipped a game to a live app store. Shipaton was the reason to finally do it.
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