Malthusian Cathouse by Alan Lu

[raw]
made by Alan Lu for LD 42 (COMPO)

Your cats breed uncontrollably, and your roommate has to do laundry. Keep the cat population from exploding out of control before he gets back.

1.1 update: the game used to get wonky input in Chrome (see this issue: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/16262) but that has now been fixed. Also a small visual error has been corrected.

Ratings

Overall 387th 3.333⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Fun 326th 3.31⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Innovation 154th 3.595⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Theme 164th 3.929⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Graphics 441th 3.048⭐ 23🧑‍⚖️
Audio 419th 2.725⭐ 22🧑‍⚖️
Humor 7th 4.184⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Mood 222th 3.237⭐ 21🧑‍⚖️
Given 21🗳️ 13🗨️

Feedback

Gary Beebe
13. Aug 2018 · 03:35 UTC
Hey, that was great. "Noooo, bad kitty!"
Alex_LemminG
13. Aug 2018 · 05:12 UTC
I feel like controls are breaking all the time and i cant move normally. But game is fun=)
Nehvis
13. Aug 2018 · 05:13 UTC
Cool idea, but very weird controls
cassowary
13. Aug 2018 · 05:48 UTC
Oh man, it's like herding cats! The writing is great. :)
🎤 Alan Lu
14. Aug 2018 · 00:06 UTC
Thank you all for playing!

Input glitches up in chrome: https://github.com/godotengine/godot/issues/16262

There's a workaround, but I didn't find it before the compo end, so I am leaving the game in its broken state, as I think it would be against the rules to work on it now (maybe? This is my first LD).

EDIT: Just saw the rules clause that allows small bugfixes, so expect that to land some time after work for me.
Galan
17. Aug 2018 · 01:23 UTC
At first I was like, "this is too easy". Then I let the cats collide and the game started. Then the strays showed up. Then I had a house full of cats.

Once I restarted and figured out how to herd the cats, the challenge was perfect. Just enough to feel like I had SOME control, but not much…

Pretty much the perfect cat herding simulator.
JLV
17. Aug 2018 · 01:30 UTC
Okay, that's one of my favourite LD42 entries so far. Pretty minimal, sure, but the humor, the dialogue, the mechanic are absolutely on point.

Pros :
- The roommate and its timing thoughout the game, comedic genius
- Simple but readable graphics and action
- Good sound design makes for easy interaction with the cats
- The layout of the room and the cats'behavior help build an okay difficulty curve
- Great implementation of the theme

Cons :
- Some background music would help
- The cats'hitbox is not that clear ; it would help to get some visual feedback to better show which cat is selected.

Awesome work !
ctrble
17. Aug 2018 · 02:13 UTC
Oh man, I had way too much herding these cats. The first time I played I just wanted to see how much of a mess I could make, and then when I was actually trying it was way harder. A+
GhostGoatsGames
17. Aug 2018 · 03:13 UTC
This is great, I was laughing to myself most of the time, great job!
Ganonwarrior
17. Aug 2018 · 03:15 UTC
Oh my God these cats are demons! Hahaha, good job, I loved the game idea!
Pixels Everywhere
17. Aug 2018 · 03:38 UTC
Pretty funny idea lol. Picking up the cats is a little wonky tho
dalbinblue
17. Aug 2018 · 03:47 UTC
Play through #1, I can do this, wait no stop, STALP! 17 cats later I lost. The extra strays making it challenging. Ended with 17 cats and got yelled at.
Play through #2, let's rub the cats together to see if I can crash my computer.

In all seriousness, the concept was simple but appropriate; and a nice joke since you are literally herding cats. The cat's movement makes sense, not too frenetic, but stubborn. The only technical issue I had was that there were times where either pick up the cat or putting them down didn't trigger as expected. I couldn't figure out if it was an input reading or a hitbox issue.
Ben ONeal
17. Aug 2018 · 06:24 UTC
I was playing on Chrome so I guess it was more difficult for me given the control issues. But the idea is clever and simple and the execution has good humour and fits the theme in a unique way. Well done!
Josia Roncancio
17. Aug 2018 · 15:56 UTC
This was hilarious. Somehow, the timing was so perfect that just about in the last couple of seconds, my cat population started exploding and I could do nothing but sit there and hope my roommate wouldn't kill me.

Only negative for me was that I was stuck with the first two cats for quite a while because I thought the game had already started. Not sure what the best way to prevent that would be, maybe the next event should just happen automatically after a while if the player doesn't let the cats touch.

Apart from that, one of my favourites so far. Good job!
Daniel Rincon
19. Aug 2018 · 01:34 UTC
Very nice game, i felt that picking up the cats was a little too hard, but overall a very funny implementation of the theme, loved the game concept, congratulations, Keep it up!
Nyri0
19. Aug 2018 · 11:26 UTC
Nice game, funny idea! However, as said in the comments above, controls are not working well, it's hard to move cats.
TomekS
19. Aug 2018 · 14:19 UTC
HAHAHAH what a funny idea to have, nice touch to the sounds as well, Good entry, well executed. I don't ever want to be a roomie in this situation.
commanderstitch
23. Aug 2018 · 23:50 UTC
FANTASTIC entry. Loved it. didn't want them to breed at the beginning so i just stood there for a long time before ... okay let them breed. then i realized that was supposed to happen once. lol
Whismirk
31. Aug 2018 · 13:39 UTC
Ok, that was... completely hilarious. I really liked the dialogues with the roommate. Gameplay wise, it's simple but still really fun. Only downside for me is that once you have a certain amount of cats, it is pretty much impossible to prevent them from breeding and just swarm you until you can't even move (still very funny when it happens though !). Overall, good work !

By the way, did you use Godot ?
🎤 Alan Lu
02. Sep 2018 · 04:52 UTC
Thank you everybody!

@whismirk Yes, I did use Godot.