Pet the Damn Cat! by Deprecat

You work a 9-5 from the comfort of your home, but your cat is very needy.
Every 10 seconds your cat will beg for pets and they get real mad if you ignore them. But your job is also pretty needy, and they're the ones that pay you so you should try your best to balance work and home before your shift ends.
Controls:
Hold right click to control your hand to pet your cat. They will prompt you to either pet their βHead, Chest/Belly, or Buttβ though their body language.
If you can't tell if you're petting them in the right spot, move around until they start purring.
Minigames will pop up with general instructions on what to do

> Balance work and cuddles

> Try to at least look like you're paying attention

> Look at that face! You can't ignore something this cute.
| Itch.io HTML5 | https://deprecat.itch.io/pet-the-damn-cat |
| Newgrounds HTML5 | https://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/859145 |
| Windows | https://deprecat.itch.io/pet-the-damn-cat |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/51/pet-the-damn-cat |
Ratings
| Overall | 92th | 4.073β | 77π§ββοΈ |
| Fun | 282th | 3.727β | 77π§ββοΈ |
| Innovation | 132th | 3.919β | 76π§ββοΈ |
| Theme | 120th | 4.196β | 76π§ββοΈ |
| Graphics | 51th | 4.5β | 75π§ββοΈ |
| Humor | 21th | 4.372β | 76π§ββοΈ |
| Mood | 50th | 4.268β | 73π§ββοΈ |
| Given | 34π³οΈ | 37π¨οΈ |
I wish I could two things at once though! I can't pet the cat and pretend to be paying attention or texting someone. I'm not sure if that was intended or not. Either way, that's just a nitpick. I love this game, I love the cat. Well done! It was a very enjoyable experience for me ααα’
Thank you! The cat noises are actually my cats Baby and Spooky. Baby provided the meows and Spooky gave the purrs. Lulu would have been in but she's the quietest cat I've ever met lol.
Fun fact I did leave it so you can zoom call and pet at the same time, which usually leads to you bending your neck terribly. It's great so I kept it.
I just tried that! I had to laugh because it looks so silly. I really like it :]
Really love the art and the multitasking part of it!
Well done!
Good job :thumbsup:
Love the art, great job with the user controlled animations and all the 'work' minigames.
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Personally, I could not keep up with the speed of things at all. The pacing is a little too fast, but it's still nice.

I was sitting here trying to play the game to do work but my virtual cat needed attention which was preventing me from working, and then my cat in real life was also sitting on my lap demanding attention while I tried to play the game and work and give attention to my virtual cat.
It's cat's all the way down. I love it.π»
also the art is so cute ππ is the cat modeled after one of your fur babies??
@technonugget yup! The art is based on my fluffy girl Lulu. The meowing is my elderly cat Baby giving her best performance and the purring is our neighborhood cat (but kind of just ours now) Spooky
An unsuccessful attempt at breaking the meta:

My first run was disastrous, mostly because I was moving the mouse a lot petting the cat, and still getting used to what the minigames wanted me to do. Wasn't too bad though, I was able to clear it on the 2nd run. The icon dragging one was by far the most terrifying one since it took the longest.
The art is very nice and I'm really impressed with your vector art. Everything is animated well, there are lots of little details and shadows, but most importantly you conveyed emotion so well with it. I've also felt like that nuance is pretty difficult with vector but it seems like you've had a lot of practice in that arena. It's also not a common technique in LD, and when it is it's a bit more simple.
Overall, definitely a funny and novel concept. You could've stopped at just the concept and had it be juggling the cat vs work but you went the extra mile by having both systems have their own forms of minigames. Having 2 scoreboards at the bottom was pretty clever and added to the feeling of juggling 2 different things with 2 different fail states, not something I've seen before!
I never figured out how to tell which part of the cat it wanted me to pet, but in my successful run I always pet the head and I did so with a large mouse motion so maybe it just counted as petting the whole cat.
It's pretty stressful trying to satisfy this employer and cat!
Fun game, great art, and overall good job!
That would legit be fun to have a meta award - scan your actual cats face while they're next to you to start hard mode. The technology needs to get here sooner
I dont know how, but its very relaxing and stressful at the same time! Just like in real life...
You also can check mine and rate it :hearts:
Great job making this game!
https://youtu.be/m7KJvAJLSXE
One small thing I can think of to consider is the cat petting. It took me a while, and judging by the comments others also had a similar issue, to realise I just needed to leave the mouse standing still on the cat in the right spot instead of moving it about to similuate a petting motion. Maybe just adding in somewhere in the tutorial that the mouse has to be still would be good enough. I had a similar issue with the nodding minigame where I thought I had to move the mouse to nod but I only actually needed to hold down the left mouse button.
It really made me feel like I had a cat next to me while at work which is really impressive. :)