Developer's Log

Catraté Fighters - Meow Alpha

Developer's Log

Introduction -

Hello, my name is Chris Bucca Taylor, and I have always loved video games, they were how I made friends with the other kids in my neighborhood. Growing up I had an SNES and Nintendo 64, as well as a Gameboy, Gameboy Pocket (with a dusty inner screen), clear purple Gameboy Color, Gameboy Advance SP. I have always gravitated toward the games of Rare Ltd. Their humor, characters, gameplay and polish were the height of gaming. I actually have a sticker of Donkey Kong riding Enguarde that I put on my GBC and then transferred to every handheld after.

When I was nine I was given two kittens who we named Magic and Salem (who is referred to as Shadow in the game).  When I moved to Los Angeles in my late 20s, I took Magic along with me where I then met my wife and her cat Lana Leopard, who Magic then taught how to be a cat.

My influences for Meow Alpha are Donkey Kong Country 3: Dixie Kong's Double Trouble, Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, and Link's Awakening DX.

August 22, 2023

I have now Downloaded GB Studios and futzed around with it.  After hearing about this piece of software from a few people in a discord server, and a fast food chain making their own Gameboy game with it, I will now check it out. I have never even attempted to make a game, the closest I have gotten is creating the Diddy Kong Racing hub world, Timber’s Island, in Disney Infinity.  That’s it.  I can write a story and draw, but I’ve never even thought about how to put together a game, let alone ever attempted.

Goal became within the next month to create an overworld of three screens, two the size of the GB screen, mirror of each other, and a middle screen, which will be the Cat Cave Temple, that connects them that’s about four times the size of a GB screen. On the third screen there'll be a passage to the first side-scrolling level. Side-scrolling level will lead back to overworld, where you walk up to the door of the temple, it will open and you can go into it.

Within this next month I built my assets. I downloaded Pixel Studio for the iPhone to create art bit by bit. Over a couple days I built a main character, Lana Leopard, leader of the catraté fighters, she has 12 different frames of animation. Then I learned that bright green is basically the invisible color for characters, like green screen, so I had to change Lana's features to be another color. After creating the overworld walking cycle, up down left right, for the character, I then created the side-scrolling one that has jump. I also created two frames each for Dash and Swim. I hope to use Swim as Climb as well, especially for jumping from vine to vine which is the goal for Level 1.

I also created a final boss for the final boss battle, but when I tried to input it, it was way too big, the size of four regular characters.  So I’ll eventually break it down maybe into four parts.  As for the bad guy drones, I just used the head of the boss I made.  The boss is a robotic cat, reminiscent of KAOS from DKC3.  Not sure why I made him a robotic cat, but maybe I can somehow make it a part of the overall plot, whatever that will be.

I drew out the assets for the three overworld screens, two being mirrors of each other with things that made them slightly different. And a giant walkaround Cat Temple, the Cat-Cave.

November 2023

I went back into GB Studios after a while and figured out how to make the bad guy solid, make it so that when he shoots you it kills you and sends you back to the beginning of the level. I also made it so when you shoot, you kill the bad guy and it disappears. This was a major hurdle, as Lana kept walking through the drones.  This first side-scrolling level is entitled Clover Country which is a forest of giant overgrown clovers the size of giant trees.

Idea is to make a second level that's a cave, maybe one that you can skateboard in.

November 27, 2023

I created the third level, the helicopter, kitty-copter, level, in Tiled, after a week of drawing out the assets on my phone, basically by hand. I created an asset png and then easily made the level. I then put it in the proper folder and added it in GB Studios as a new frame. I added the bad guys flying around as well. It fits the 192 threshold!

December 3, 2023

I created the second level in Tiled, the cave level I had the vision for. I made it by hand on my phone, dragging everything bit by bit but it was too big, so I then had to get rid of most of the stalagmites. So that’s when I realized I do need to download Tiled. Tiled has been a lot of fun to work in, if I can just get the math correct on the screen size, I can create a master file that with a screen the size of the GB screen and then build a bunch of smaller areas to build out the overworld and connect it to the larger “four screen sized” hub worlds.

I got the cave level the right size! I then added the blocks to walk on, added unique bad guy drones for the level that have the same info as the previous baddies from level 1 to shoot and die.

I went to run the game and it was in limbo just thinking. No errors or anything, just taking a long time. Not sure what’s different. I added a character to the title screens because it kept giving me an error even though it would run anyway.

Later on in the night after we put up the Christmas tree I ran the game again, waited patiently, and it worked after 327899ms

Played the cave level. It’s fine, but I need to adjust a few platforms.

December 4th

Thought that Cave level didn’t work, because of how high two of the platforms are. But I tested it out today, and you can make both jumps if you press jump at just the right time. So I don’t need to change the level layout by moving the platforms down.

I went over the code in the drones for each level and made sure they disappeared when you shot them. Still having trouble. When they shoot, I cannot shoot if we’re both on the screen. I can shoot and then my bullet will follow me along the side scroll, then hit a bad guy and they’ll disappear. Bad guys are now solid and Lana can stand on them. I need to program that when they hit you, you die, or go back to the beginning of the level. I need to maybe program losing a life, maybe. I need to program jumping on them kills them maybe.

I made a start screen out of my logo I already made for the game with a PRESS START on it and I made a logo screen and logo for Full Dino Games.  I added them to the game and they now start it up when testing and then the game goes to the first overworld screen!

I also created the villain drones for the three other levels.  So now there is four types of villain drones, one with wheels, one that’s flying, and two more.

December 14th

I looked up Link's Awakening’s map and it’s broken down into 16 by 16 larger screens, so I decided to do 16 by 16 for now, with the larger square counting as four and the little screens counting as 1.

I planned on making four “large square four screen” anchor points on the map. The Four Leafed Clover, Lighthouse, Cave Entrance, and Kitty College. I built all four in a few days in my spare time on my phone, these are all hand made, I couldn’t simply populate assets, I had to drag and drop everything on a tiny phone screen.  It was painstaking, but I think the hub worlds look pretty great. So now they are uploaded into the game. All were under the 192 limit except Kitty College, which wasn’t finished anyway. So I got rid of the individual letters that said Kitty College since it didn’t need to say it twice.

When I uploaded them I realized where they each needed to be placed on the map, so Beach Lighthouse goes on right, Cave below, Kitty college above and finally the Four Leafed Clover of Clover Country to the left. I then connected the Clover Country side-scrolling level to the Four Leafed Clover overworld Hub screen.  In the center of the giant Four Leafed Clover is a cat you talk to which then asks if you want to go to Level 1 - Clover Country.  If you say yes then it transports you, if you say no then you stay there.

After that I connected the cave side scrolling level to the overworld Cave Entrance. And the Kitty Copter Cove side-scrolling level I connected to the helicopter pad on Kitty College in the overworld.  Suddenly it’s now looking like a real game with an overworld and three side-scrolling levels to find and jump into. I then made it so you can go to the top of the lighthouse and jump down but not be able to get up and made waves that move in the ocean. Moving forward! Would be cool to have an animation of a jump when Lana jumps off the lighthouse.

January 15th 2024

A lot has happened. Initially I made the five giant anchor areas: Left- Four Leafed Clover, Right- Lighthouse, South- Cave Entrance, North- Kitty College, Center- Cat Cave. 256x256 I believe each.

So now I need to connect all of them. I also have the two GB sized screens next to the Cat Cave, which are the three screens I started with. The anchors are a little less than the size of four GB screens; I put them in the places I thought they needed to go, with a realization I’ll have to make screens to connect them to the Cat Cave area.

I took a screenshot of everything, all eight screens with all the blank space around them, then on my phone, I drew over the missing screens as red squares, then in blue I wrote how they all connect with arrows. In total I had about 45 screens to make (out of 47 since I already made two small screen areas).

Over the month I created an asset sheet of four trees, the different tiles, all 8x8, I made two different grass ones, one for sand, the black tile with white dots for the Cat-Cave wall and four stone blocks, then those four stone blocks I turned to their side 90 degrees, so now I have eight stone blocks to work with. Then I had the lines I used to make the exterior of Kitty College and made them an asset sheet to work off of in Tiled. I ended up recoloring those throughout and those helped me build what became 54 screens in the last month all in Tiled and updating the assets, like creating palm trees on my iPhone in Pixel Studio, then uploading them to Google Drive and then importing them into my computer and into TIled. I went from 47 to 54 screens and then the 5 huge anchor screens and three side scrolling levels.

I made six places that you can go into, so now I need to do those six interiors and the final side scrolling level with the Boss Battle.

But now I have a working map and working game. The door I made for the CatCave I added throughout the world in about five spots for advancement in the overworld. Right now it just asks if you have a key and unlocks without checking for anything since I have no idea how to even process doing something like that.

Right around Christmas I ordered the Joey Jr. Gameboy flash cartridge reader. It basically is a device you plug a GB cartridge into and then it plugs in USB into the computer. I ordered it and I ordered two Chinese bootleg Pokémon cartridges from AliExpress, another Green (I was curious about it so I bought one a month ago) and a Silver. I ended up getting the cartridges before I got the Joey Jr. The Pokémon Silver cartridge doesn’t look anything like the real thing, which I have. It looks most like the normal gray color cartridge which actually means I can overwrite the game on it with my own and my game will be in a regular gray Gameboy cartridge!

When I went into my email I noticed the Joey Jr. I bought said “preorder,” meaning they were on backorder. I emailed them and they got back within a day and said they got their newest shipment, see me lower in line, and they’ll bump me up and I should get it within a couple days! And I got it within that day couplet!

So I got it and the first thing I did was plug in my Gameboy Camera and finally, after 26 years, extract my GB camera pics, and there’s two good ones of me, some of my old childhood neighbor, so I sent them to him on Facebook messenger.

After getting done a PowerPoint presentation for work I plug in Fauxkemon Silver, backup the rom in a folder on my computer. I then export Meow Alpha in GB Studio as a rom.  It’s severely incomplete, not a full game, but it’s a build of something. I drag and drop the rom into the usb drive folder that is the Pokémon Silver knock off cart. I also do it with the Green cart. I tell my wife, put the green cartridge into my childhood GBA SP, flip on the switch, the Nintendo logo pops up, and–BOOM my logo pops up, followed by my Start Screen. My wife notices before I do because I’m in such shock.

I play my game on a real cartridge on real Nintendo hardware and immediately encounter a glitch and get stuck in a wall. I quickly update that and a few transitions between overworld screens and flash the carts again. I then took a smaller sticker of Lana Leopard, the first Catratè Fighter sticker I ever made, and stuck it on the front of the cartridge.

January 23rd

My goal was to make 50 NPCs that all move, that are animated. Throughout the last week I have been drawing cats in Pixel Studio on my phone.  And I reached my goal of 50 and now have them all ready to go in the assets folder. I then cleaned up the doors I made because when I was playing around with the game on Gameboy I noticed that after interacting with a door every time you pressed the action button it would say what the door said. So I fixed it, made different doors say unique things, not open if you say No.  I initially had the button overwritten, so once you interacted with the door, that button would always give you the message on the door as long as you were within that screen.  So now the door only talks when you are next to it and press the action button. I added two more doors to block the path to the beach. Overall cleaned the doors up. I also started adding more dialogue to the NPCs that reference the storyline and have been coming up with names for all 50 NPC cats!

There were a few spots with ledges you can fall off of and then drop down a section that were wonky, so I cleaned them up too.

I have begun drawing the interior of Kitty College.

I am also drawing and cleaning up the box art. I created the cartridge sticker and ordered them off of Sticker App!

I then took out my original chunky gray Gameboy. I have two of them, one doesn’t work, the other works but the screen flashes. Turns out my game works on the OG Gameboy as well!

March 26, 2024

So I took a long break from the game to focus on my actual job, my real career that pays the bills and have been making some incredible progress with the kids I work with. But this week was Spring Break for one of the school districts I work with, so I was able to focus on my creative endeavors.

The main things I wanted to get done were the interiors for Kitty College, the two Cardboard Fort interiors, the inside of the top of the Mountain and the TWO secret locations. The Kitty College interior took me longer than I expected, as I made an entrance room with a Cat Cafe (Catfe), then a hallway (and since I hadn't done this in a month, I got the dimensions all wrong and they weren't divisible by 8, so I fixed that), then I made four classrooms and an auditorium. But when I put it all together I realized I made two extra entrances in the hallway, so I made two closets with a broom and bucket. Then I went to make the far right room that connects to the entrance room; since it sits under the bell tower, I wanted to make it have cogs, but then I realized bell towers just have pully systems and not cogs, so I scrapped the whole idea of tying the room to the bell tower and decided to make it two swimming pools, and I used the swimming code from Platformer+. Overall I like all the interiors except maybe the entrance room which I may clean up at a later date if I feel inclined.

Then I was able to create the two Cardboard Fort interiors, the two secret locations and the inside of the top of the mountain all in Tiled, which saved me a lot of time and anguish of drawing in Pixel Studio on my phone.

So now the ENTIRE MAP IS DONE! I am so happy I can now move on to the harder parts of completing the game such as the inventory system and the music and sound effects. For the music I feel I will need to outsource and find someone who can make the music for me.  I can dance really well, but I have never created music.

March 27, 2024

I now need to focus on the inventory system and the way to start that is by making a Pause Menu that is just the Inventory System and nothing else, nice and simple, that's my motto, to not make anything too confusing. So the first time I tried to add in is the menu, I kept getting an error when I pressed Pause in the game. When I showed the game on an actual cartridge to my friend John at Pokemon Go Fest in Los Angeles, he ran into the same problem.

I realized what I was doing wrong was I programmed the Pause button on the actual Pause Menu and I needed to program it on every single screen. So I put it in every scene except the Side Scrolling levels. And it worked! So now I have a working Pause Menu which is also the Inventory Screen.

March 28, 2024

So I realized that the Pixel Pete tutorial I was using for the inventory system was for an older version and out of date. So, again, I decided to just think of the simplest method that made sense to my brain. So I took the essence of what Pixel Pete was saying and translated it into a method that I thought would work.

I created Variables and kept testing it with the Skateboard inventory item I drew and I got it to almost work. The skateboard successfully disappears as if you picked it up and the inventory screen then shows an item in the first slot. But the tutorial had all four items as ONE SPRITE. So the next step is to maybe just have each sprite for each item be individual, then it should pop up once I grab the item. Right now it does in fact pop up in the inventory screen but flashes between all four items, even though the coding makes it so it just should show one item, but that coding was for an earlier build, so I am just going to put one item in each and rewrite the code and see if that works! Moving along and once I have this inventory system worked out, have the game recognize the keys to both types of doors/locks and then have some sort of number inventory system for the CAT letters, as in when you collect a CAT letter, the counter goes up by one in the pause menu.

April 10, 2024

The inventory system is now my main focus. I got the Skateboard and three other items to come up in the inventory screen after you collect them and they now permanently disappear in the world. And the doors now check if you have the item and disappear when you do but if you leave the screen and come back they reappear. Not sure if I need to fix that.  Also if you are standing where a door was, pause and then unpause, the door is on top of you, but then you can just press A, the dialogue box comes up and you can prompt it to make the door disappear.  Since you already had that ability, this isn’t a soft lock situation.

Now the new goal is to create C-A-T letters like the K-O-N-G letters in the DKC and DKL duology of trilogies and DKC sequel duology.

In pixel studio I drew the animated C A T letters. I think in game they are the keys to the toy factory. The board of directors had nine or 12 keys for each board member and they are scattered throughout the open world and levels.

I put them in the game. Copied the code from the skateboard. But instead of appearing in the Inventory Menu when you get them, I wanted a number counter to increase by one and go to twelve.

So I added the letters to the inventory menu with an X next to them and an invisible actor that has 12 frames for each number. I made it so that it is invisible when the count is at zero and made the first frame, the 1 image, visible when the count variable equaled 1, then 2 for 2. Now the frame number was one off of the frame image and I had to think hard when creating the system because I didn’t create a zero image. So it’s just invisible when you have no CAT letters.

I’ve been using the inside of the Cat Cave, the main area with the giant cat statues, as the testing playground for the items and doors. I made actors for each CAT letter and when I picked up the C the count went up to 1 in the inventory, so it worked so far.

Then I picked up the A and pressed start to get to the inventory menu and the number was still at one. That’s cause the script is just to increase by one but since it did that already the value didn’t actually go up. So I changed it to Increase Increment and that moves up the frame by 1 after each item collected and then when I picked up the C, the number changed to a 2 and when I picked up the T to a 3. Then to make them disappear I needed to give them each their own value so the game didn’t think it already did that.

So now that works. Now I need the door for the final level to open when you have 12 letters and not open when you have less than 12.  I’ll also need to program a few more doors throughout the game to have a sense of progression.

Geeze I hope any of this makes sense.

April, 25, 2024

As I have been making the game I have also been creating the boxart. My original boxart had the Gameboy logo in gray on the side and pixel art of Lana Leopard and Majestic Magic. Magic is not in the game, so I removed her, added drone baddies and the main boss baddie behind Lana. I got rid of the great Gameboy bit and added Cat+Karate to the logo.  The Clover Country Cat Fort background was something I drew up a year ago for the novel I have been writing in tandem with making this game.  I have printed the box out on regular paper after measuring the front, back and sides in Sketchbook on my phone, even downloading a pic of a ruler and adding it into the box art file in Sketchbook which helped me figure out the dimensions. It worked, the box fits together perfectly. I then rewrite what it says on the back of the box and now use that as the main description for the game.

I have now made the 12 key door to get into the final side-scrolling level with the final boss, I tested it all in the testing chambers that is the Cat Cave and it all worked. So now I dispensed all twelve letters and the two keys to the places I think they should go. Then I started writing dialogue for even more of the cats. Some tell the story of the game, that they lost their house due to their owners buying a robotic cat from an evil toy company that took their place. The toy company used to be Kitty's cat toy company but it was taken over. Twelve C-A-T Key Cards are laid, strewn throughout the three side scrolling levels and three in the overworld. The two keys remain hidden in two caves throughout the overworld.

The first door to go to the greater world now requires that you have a weapon, so you have to go into the Cat-Cave at the very beginning and pick up the Peacock Staff.

August 21, 2024

Wow, I did a lot in the last four months and have not written it down.

I have been so afraid to tackle the music in this game because I don't really know anything about music theory or putting sounds together to make a larger more complex sound.

Music was a big deal for me. I was told my grandfather could play any song just by listening to it… I can’t. I have never really attempted writing music. I made a CD in college that was a compilation of my friends and I singing different random things we made up like The Dad Song or a bit from our radio show, our high school had a radio station. But nothing was composed, in fifth grade I was in percussion but the music teacher, Mr. J, whacked a student with his aged and splintered conducting baton. Everyone quit music, then everyone’s parents gradually put everyone back in, except I stayed defiant and never properly learned percussion!

Anyway, the music composer for GB Studio allows for four different sounds, two main ones, then the snare and bass or something. With the bass I was able to make a simple repeated rhythm that I then was able to add a snare type beat to. The two fit well together, I then repeated the section a bunch of times, changing the last note, so it hints at that original ending but you get build up to it but never it for a while and then bam you get it. This is the one song I made that worked, all the others sound obnoxious, but this one sounds catchy and I think can get you through the entire game… hopefully.

So I made a lot of songs. I tried to make certain Zelda beats from memory and they sounded different enough to be new things, but they didn’t hold up to the scrutiny of repeated listening.

All doors are fixed and there's progression.

• Five CAT Letters to get the Tree Key in Mount Maine Coon
  • Unlocks Tortoiseshell Beach Area
• Six CAT Letters to get the Mouse Key in the Secret Cave
  • Unlocks Kitty College Area
• Seven CAT Letters to get the Skateboard on the Lighthouse
• Nine CAT Letters to get the CAT Letter in the Secret Toy Satellite Room
• Twelve CAT Letters to get in to final level Level 4 - Toy Factory

I made a 2.0 version of the game when I switched locations of the keys, locked the Tree Key behind an unlockabke door. I realized I can give early access to a Tortoiseshell Beach, as it has teases to new places but no access. So you see a skateboard on top of the lighthouse, but you need a certain amount of letters to unlock the door. Then you see the outside of the final level, the Toy Factory, with drones that move but won’t hurt you, and you need 12 letters to get into the Toy Factory. Then you can see parts of the  outskirts of Kitty College up on a bluff that you can’t access yet.

Then when you find the secret door that needs six letters you get the Mouse Key, that used to be a secret society key that gives access to Kitty College.

Now I just need to add character interaction is different if talked to another person to then unlock something. I think that makes sense. So if you talk to all four of the siloed off NPCs in the beginning then you unlock the Cat Cave which gives you access to the Peacock Staff which then gives you access to the rest of the game by unlocking the next door.

August 28, 2024

After a huge break from making the game I came back to finish the last two things’ after that it is completely done!  I want to change how you unlock the very first door in the game to get the weapon.  If I can figure that out, then I’m going to apply the same idea to unlocking the letter in Kitty College.

The idea is to have the player interact with the four NPC cats which then unlocks the door to the Cat Cave.  So when you interact with Purlock Holmes he says something like, “Make friends with Dude Maestro, Libro, Flurfy, and myself in order to gain access to the Cat Cave.  So when you approach the door it does not open if you talked to three or less of the characters.  But if you talk to all four the door has an additional piece of dialogue that says you are worthy and disappears.

At first I made them all the same variable, but I tested it and if you just talked to one cat four times than it opened.  So i made a variable for when you talk to each cat, have the door recognize all four, then open.  It worked!  So now I’m going to apply this logic to Kitty College and the letter that you can unlock there.  It’ll be like five people that you have to interact with in order to unlock that CAT letter!

September 2, 2024

I know applied that same logic to Kitty College and I got rid of the bucket blocking the Cat Letter collectible and changed it into another desk.

Now when you go to the desk a dialogue box from it says there’s a note and on the note out said to talk to a cat who can swim. So now you go to the pool area, now one of the NPCs there has additional dialogue telling you who to visit next. That’ll take you through ten steps in total. One of the last telling you to use a screwdriver in the closet, in the closet is a bucket with a letter that says they borrowed the screwdriver to fix the pool and they hope they don’t lose it in the pool. Then in the pool, in a wave that’s a character separate from the background will tell you that you found a screwdriver. Then when you go back over to the desk, it’ll tell you that you are taking apart the desk, then it disappears and you get the letter! That was my final goal!

After that I cleaned up the background for the final level, the Toy Factory. I actually put a bunch of the drone enemies into the background, so the player is unsure as to which is which when playing. I then went in and added windows to Toy Factory and the interior of Kitty College, so main interior where the Cat’fe is and the hallway. I also added writing in a diamond that says Kitty College to the floor of the hallway.

Okay, as long as there’s no bugs, as long as I programmed the Kitty College ten person exchange that activates new dialogue and a Cat Letter key card in the overworld correctly, and the final level plays fine ands allows you to progress, then that’s a wrap. The game is ready to print, going gold, to be sold at local used video game stores and online. There’s a way to get it on Steam, it can’t be any more confusing than making a song for the game. I’m going to attempt that, which, like all of this, feels above my understanding. We’ll see what I can do. Hopefully the game works! Love you all!