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[oldblood]

A very simple but cool mechanic. And cats. So we know this is going to be a best-seller.

My only feedback would be that I think visually, the environments are going to need more aesthetic changes as you progress. You will need to change more than the color palette and puzzles to keep interest up, especially as the puzzles becoming increasingly challenging.

[MereMonkey]

Can't wait to play it on the Dreamcast haha I can see this being very challenging which is awesome!

[Cranktrain]

Finished the first pass of The Cat Machine's equivalent of a Level Selection screen. It's hard to call it finished when all the many levels are yet to be created, but I'm happy with the concept:



The tutorial will explain that every puzzle that is completed (green towers), unlocks the two levels that are in the next row (orange). The grey towers are currently locked.

This means that the harder the levels get, the more levels that are available to try. This means that getting stuck isn't such a frustrating blocker because there are always other puzzles available to progress.

I'm totally stealing this idea from an old game, Lemmings Revolution:



I haven't played that game since I was a child, but I find it interesting that that's the design decision that stuck with me for 15-odd years.

[Cranktrain]

Spent the last month working on levels, I'm all done, there are more than fifty of them now. Here's a few:

As a result, the level-select screen now looks like:

I haven't completed the last levels because things happen and that's a surprise.

Currently working on the ending sequence.

[Cranktrain]

Another update, this time showing off some of the music. Doing all the programming and all the art can be tiring, and music is the one area I get other people to do, and I'm really happy with how the music has turned out, its certainly the most pleasant sounding game I've created.

[Wyeth]

This is actually pretty awesome.
As a fan of SpaceChem this really speaks to me.
I am totally sure this got an audience. I think the cats are quite charming with their minimalistic ! and ? effects. I didn't care too much for the menue (the yellow one) I feel it kinda breaks with the style a little. You could put slightly more work into that I feel.
Maybe the orange is a bit much on that? But still pretty passable.

All in all, would like to get my hands on it and experience it for myself. I can see this being a very interesting puzzle game with a very unique theme.

[oldblood]

Wow that main theme song... You can't help but feel a little happier after you hear it and the intermittent cat noises really tie it all together nicely. Well done to your composer.

[Cranktrain]

Big news!

The Cat Machine is now on Greenlight!

If would mean the world to me if you'd go and vote, it's only been up for an hour or so.

There's a fun trailer, and some screenshots on the other end of that link.

[Zorg]

For some reason, i can't watch the any video, it stops working after a few seconds.
Edit: It seems i cannot watch any youtube video at the moment. So it's not your problem.
Edit 2: Deinstalling the Flash player solved the problem.

One thing caught my attention: I found a title screenshot without logo outline in this thread. Is it still in use? I think it looked good. Your game view is full of outlines and you are using (black) outlines for UI elements, too. Have you thought about colored outlines or flat UI? I guess colored outlines could merge with the background, but it's worth to think about flat UI.

Mockup:
bigger version

[vividhelix]

Congrats on getting greenlit, looking forward to this as I loved both of your inspirations (spacechem and world of goo)!

[Cranktrain]

vividhelix - Thanks! Yes, we got Greenlit after just seven days. I wrote a blog-post earlier today going through what the Greenlight process was like, should anyone be interested.

Very excited to be heading to Steam, The Cat Machine's had some good press, so my hopes are that the game will do well. Just got to finish it off now!

Zorg - Thanks for your efforts. I'm not a fan of the Flat UI, I hate not being able to tell what's clickable, but that's okay, we can have different thoughts on what looks best.

[Cranktrain]

One thing I've been doing is accepting pre-orders of the game where the customer gets to send me pictures of their cat, and have their cat added to the game. Here's the first two:

[Cranktrain]

Also, the game is being released on Steam on Wednesday next week. Scary, exciting times!

Not quite done yet, but very close.

[MannequinRaces]

Best of luck!  Looking good.  This should sell like hot cakes in Japan, and elsewhere, but I predict mostly Japan.   All kidding aside, nice work.

[oldblood]

Best of luck with the launch. Trailer looks (and sounds) great!

[Cranktrain]

A few more animated, real-life cats in-game. These are cats that are owned by people who pre-ordered at a special tier:

[Cranktrain]

The Cat Machine is on Steam!

This is exciting, and quite scary. It's my first release on Steam, so... go and click the big buy button and don't think too hard about it. 

[nkm]

Good luck!

[Cranktrain]

Thanks nkm.

Currently sitting in the big capsule at the top of Steam, doing pretty well there, but it hasn't even been 24 hours yet.

Surprising things so far:

• The sheer amount of emails you get from people pretending to be Youtubers. So many scams!
• Steam is enormous! Every steam game gets a million impressions in the New On Steam section, to start with, and you blitz through that in an hour or so. Steam gets a lot of traffic.

[Zorg]

Best of luck! This game deserves success.

• The sheer amount of emails you get from people pretending to be Youtubers. So many scams!

How do you tell apart the 'real' youtuber from the scammer?