Nine: A Cat Story is a game about cats, but it’s also a game about creating a peaceful existence through meditation, mindfulness, and compassion. We want to encourage players to nurture the spiritual, non-physical parts of themselves and maybe even give them some tips on how to do it. 

We think this is a pretty pertinent message in a society that can sometimes be very individualistic, materialistic, anxious, and consequently unhappy. 

This week I came across a quote that I thought had much wisdom:

“Your purpose in life is not to love yourself but to love being yourself.”

Whoa. 

I’m sure this quote can mean many things to different people, but here’s what it meant to us: “Love yourself” could sometimes imply focusing our energy on ourselves and what we want. But “love BEING yourself” implies a focus on creating an existence that is peaceful and enjoyable--one that comes from healthy mindsets and behaviors, a life rich with meaningful relationships, and becoming a person that we admire. At the same time, it’s both more actionable and more attainable.

What does that quote mean to you?

Thoughtfully,

Team J

Part of the joy of playing as a cat is getting to look at a cat. So we’re spending a lot of time making sure our cat is obsessably enjoyable to look at. All the dopamine.

Now that the skeleton and mesh have been designed, we’re adding the texture to make the pattern and appearance of fur on the cat. There are a lot of different ways to create the appearance of fur, but the method we’re using is to create thousands of planes/shingles on the mesh, then overlay a fur texture on each of the planes.

If we get enough funding with our kickstarter, we’d love to have dozens of customizable textures available so you can design your character to look like your cat. Designing a texture can take hours and hours, though, so the number of textures we can create will depend on how much we can raise. It would be pretty fun to have your cat and your friend’s cat get to hang out virtually!

Keep on keepin’ on,

Team J

Being able to experience a story and world with those you care about takes the gaming experience to the next level. So we wanted to make sure that our game has a multiplayer option, one that can be used both for people in the same local environment and for friends that connect across the world. Makes sense for a game that’s about connection and healing to bring people together over cats, right?

We also know that parents appreciate games that siblings can play together. Partially for sibling bonding and partially to avoid fighting over who gets to use the console. XD

Check out these cool videos from our preliminary multiplayer testing.

Have a great week and share the console, please.

Team J

This week we’ve been working on the skeleton (or rig) for our main character cat model, trying to make him look as cat-ty as possible. It’s amazing how much of a difference fur makes on the standard shape we know as a cat!

If a player has a lower processing power on their machine, their computer will render a lower-detail model of the cat. It will still look like a cat even if the mesh and texture are not as detailed.

And if a player does have a higher processing power machine--oh man! This cat is gonna look goooood. 

Have a great week,

Team J

Back in 2021, we saw some YouTube footage of a cat wearing a GoPro and thought “being a cat would make the best video game ever.” While looking into making a cat game, we found that the trailer for Stray had been released a few weeks prior–someone else saw the vision!

We loved playing Stray. But it didn’t quite scratch the itch of our original craving. The gameplay was a little too constricted, the graphics a little too dark, and it felt a bit more like watching a cat go on an adventure rather than being the cat. So we went back to the drawing board.

Introducing Nine: A Cat Story. A fully immersive narrative adventure where you get to be the cat–you’ll feel the thrill of effortlessly sprinting across rooftops, scaling up and down walls, and heartlessly rejecting human affection. While you adventure, you also unravel a touching story of healing that spans generations. 

Not only that, we want to make this game a social game--including multiplayer mode. You can both experience the main quest and play minigames with your friends and family. Imagine just calling up a friend and chatting while you run around as cats together, exploring cool environments and stirring up mayhem. 

We’ll be posting updates here on this blog and will be running a kickstarter as soon as we finish the trailer. Keep tuning in for sneak peeks, exclusive content, and status updates on game development.

Signing off,

Team J