Kitten Keeper by Draklaw

Kitten Keeper
Kittens are so cute ! You cannot have to many of them. Or can you ?
You have to take care of kittens. Give them food, a place to sleep, etc. and soon you will have plenty of them. What could possibly go wrong ?
Instructions
Buy items by clicking on the buttons at the bottom left and place them on the ground. Cats will use them... If they are in the mood. Look at the bubbles to know what they need. Be careful though, you don't have infinite money.
When kittens are happy, more will come (with money!). Try to keep the happiness at 100%. Avoid deaths. If cats are missing something, happiness will drop and you might loose. Note that only a limited number of cats can use the same item at once, so be sure to place plenty of them.
Advice: don't think too much about it. There is not much strategy, we lacked time to properly balance the gameplay.
Please tell us if something don't work as expected (crash...) and send us the content of log.txt if possible. Thanks.
Changelog
- 2017-12-05: Minor fix to build for Windows.
- 2017-12-09: Fixed a random crash that is likely to occur when the number of cats exceed 100. Also enabled keyboard shortcuts: they were disabled during the LD due to the high probability to trigger this bug. Now that the bug is fixed, we re-enabled them. Note that the bug-fix is internal to our home-made game engine and not related to the game code itself. Anyway, the original version is still available. The fixed one is Windows (crash fixed).
Known issues
- Drag'n'drop of items do not always work. You can probably live without it though.
- ~~The game might crash after some time. :( We will try to reproduce this on a debug build to find the error.~~ Fixed in the post-LD version, see above.
| Windows | http://www.draklia.net/jams/kitten_keeper.zip |
| Windows | http://www.draklia.net/jams/kitten_keeper_v2.zip |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/40/kitten-keeper |
Ratings
| Given | 19🗳️ | 8🗨️ |
It seems that even if you give them what they want, or what they want is nearby, they won't always go to it, even if its uncrowded. However, I find that's somewhat realistic, as they don't always know about it if it's behind a wall or whatever. The only thing they will instantly go for is the medicine, no matter what. Because of this, once you get more and more cats, you can set up things kind of in a spaced way, and after about 50 cats, the rest is just buying more of what most of the cats need. you no longer need to move them.
A few ways I can see to improve this game:
1. Add different kinds of cats that want different things
2. cats like affection, maybe add people to pet and care for the cats
3. add different foods, different beds, upgrades to every item
4. add a way to clean up dead cats, and make it so cats will avoid an area with a dead cat
5. add different houses, different areas for the cats
Overall a great game. I'll probably play again. :)
EDIT: I got my kids to play, 4 and 6, and they loved it :)
Not much of a game at the moment. It is obvious what to do. Just keep piling in more things, *spend all the money all the time!* I got bored after 30 cats or so so just let it run until happiness fell to negative digits. Got to 102 cats doing nothing... *Yeah.*
Where does the money come from? Are people paying for you to pet their cats? If so then there are many management mechanics that could be added here:
- Rent. Gotta keep paying it!
- Resources, like food, water, litter refills? All of these constantly drain money too.
- Penalty for deaths. Currently this isn't much of an issue apart from the very beginning (medication is expensive!) Still worth considering.
Then some more advanced ideas:
- Customer relations. Why would someone drop off their cat to this place for days on end? Surely the owners should come pick up their pet eventually and then, if your service is good, drop them off again in the future. Bigger tip for good care!
- Unique cats (to a degree). Visual difference is the obvious thing, but preferences and requirements should also change. Maybe they could be territorial too and not get along with some other cats.
One GUI bug/issue is the numerous thought bubbles. At times the kittens seem to get stuck doing something, like sleeping, while they desperately think about something else, like food. That really shouldn't happen as it simply clutters the screen and makes little sense.
Other than that, the graphics are nice. Audio is ok, yet it does get annoying hearing the same *meows* over and over again. Then again, what did I expect with dozens of cats running around?
Funny idea, ok implementation. More challenge needed!
Overall: *Above average (3.5)*
Fun: *Bad (2.0)*
Innovation: *Above average (3.5)*
Theme: *Good (4.0)*
Graphics: *Above average (3.5)*
Humor: *Good (4.0)*
Mood: *Good (4.0)*
Thr main problem for me was that the game kept crashing after 25 kittens. Another issue is that the cats sometimes don't go to the toy or any other object it needs although it is there. Other than that it was really lovely to play. Congratulations :)
Sometimes it seems like maybe I have to drop the item right on top of them -- but then the game prevents me from doing that, and when I place it next to them, they just don't move.
Perhaps I'm not using the right items, but it's kind of unclear, because the bubbles that the cats have do not correspond exactly with the items' appearances. Some of them, like the pill, are obvious, but I can't really tell with the other ones.