Foon → Ludum Dare Explorer → LD24 → Cat Breeder

Cat Breeder

By caranha

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CategoryRankScoreCount
Humor1422.89
Theme2093.32
Innovation2533.14
Overall5042.73
Fun5332.45
Mood5622.25
Coolness64145
Graphics6772.05

Comments

my-milked-eek 2012-08-27 19:59

java.lang.ArrayIndexOutOfBoundsException: -1
at java.util.ArrayList.get(Unknown Source)
at ld24.TradingState.mousePressed(TradingState.java:173)
at org.newdawn.slick.state.StateBasedGame.mousePressed(StateBasedGame.java:501)
at org.newdawn.slick.Input.poll(Input.java:1207)
at org.newdawn.slick.GameContainer.updateAndRender(GameContainer.java:635)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppletGameContainer$Container.runloop(AppletGameContainer.java:514)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppletGameContainer$ContainerPanel.start(AppletGameContainer.java:218)
at org.newdawn.slick.AppletGameContainer$1.run(AppletGameContainer.java:92)

I had... Errr... 5 kittens? 3 adults? And I sold two kittens to two little girls. Happened on the second one.

caranha 2012-08-27 22:26

Thanks MME, I will check it tonight.

dr_soda 2012-08-28 07:35

Well, you know already that the game is rather difficult for people to pick up after you had your user testing. I think the mechanics themselves are fine, and the game itself isn't bad at all, but it's the UI that could use work.

Though I do have to say I was very sad when I clicked the happy looking outdoors button and it threw the little kitten into the river. On day 0. Not just because I love little kittens but because nothing about that button said "I'll reduce your inventory" or "I'll kill a kitten". It's just things like those, really.

pinkmonkeyhead 2012-08-29 12:42

I liked the description of the cats hahaha

caranha 2012-08-29 14:53

Hey Dr.Soda, thanks for the comment.

I wanted to actually draw a hand with a sack over a river, but my art skills failed me when I was doing the placeholder graphics, and I had no time to actually do the real graphics :-(

I will (probably, maybe) do a post-compo version with just a UI upgrade. Thing is, I'm still in that work trip until the end of the next week, and whatever free time I manage to find will have to go to rating games instead...

davedobson 2012-09-01 04:52

This was a fun little simulation. It wasn't always obvious what the customers wanted from their words and the description, but I liked that talking to them was part of it. The interface wasn't always completely obvious, but you could get the job done, so it worked. I liked the kitten pictures. The first time I played, the game crashed without warning when I clicked on the Sell button, but I had no trouble the second time. Nice work!

caranha 2012-09-01 05:07

Thanks for the nice review!

Yeah, there is some sort of bug on the sell interface - I probably forgot to check some array bounds - I will try to look for the problem tomorrow.

elbowroom 2012-09-01 06:49

This game was fantastic. So simply and addictive and fun. Good work.I spent over an hour playing it.

dredlockz 2012-09-01 07:35

This was fantastic!
Great humor too, first time I mistakingly threw all kittens into the river made me laugh.
I realized I was just trying to make two males for a while, it could show a message about that too.

cakemonitor 2012-09-01 09:30

This is a nice concept (and good use of kittens btw ;)) but I feel it is let down a bit by the interface: the colours are quite jarring and I would like for the screen to be less cluttered and have more at-a-glance info available (e.g. tool tips / stat bars / etc.) Maybe consider adding a few tutorial rounds also.

Good luck with it :)

eli 2012-09-01 10:53

I love the graphics!! It looks like a lot of work went into the different kinds of cat faces. Love how you strove for an accurate genetic model, even if that made certain outcomes problematic.

Game crashed without a message after selling a cat that disappointed a customer and then clicking the lens button, and I haven't reached the end yet.

caranha 2012-09-01 11:10

Cake Monitor yeah, that's how I felt about the game too. If I get around to making a post-compo version, I'm planning to add a "assistant", that will give you context-dependent hints to solve the tutorial problem.

Eli: I have to solve this crash soon :-(

jorjon 2012-09-01 19:29

Nice simulator. But I feel like a monster now... Because the easiest way to win is always throw away the cats you don't need. And even though PETA protests against you, you can buy them for only 2000Y.
One remark: the game crashes too often.

caranha 2012-09-02 18:08

Jorjon: Do you have any crash reports? I fixed one bug reported by MME and Eli, but I might have overdone it.

Well, this game should please both the cat loving and cat hating crowd! I was planning to add some text in the end game if you threw too many cats away, but didn't have the time :-)

harusame 2012-09-04 21:59

Nice concept but I dont see relationship with the theme. Graphics are not pretty and there are no sounds. But idea is interesting and it's a fun little simulation. Great job !

caranha 2012-09-04 23:01

Harusame, thanks for the comment.

As for the relationship with the theme, artificial selection by plant and dog breeders (in a very similar way as you do in this game) was one of Darwin's main inspirations for his theory of evolution.

someone 2012-09-05 14:50

Nice game. It really hogs the CPU though which seems odd considering its design.

adhesion 2012-09-06 03:43

Cool concept - I think for the interface something like hover tooltips might help.

tomhunt 2012-09-16 06:07

I had some confusion in getting it to run. I didn't realize I was supposed to run java on the .zip file..

Once I got it running, I found it pretty engaging to breed cats and sell them to people that I had varying dispositions to, which affected how willing I was to sell to them on days that I didn't really need to sell every cat I could. It could definitely use a little more variety, some graphical love, and some sound effects and music and atmosphere and all that. There's definitely a fun core going on here, though, so nice job!