The official prototype is here!

After I stumbled across the first ever build of Cardboard Cats, I decided to upload it so that people can experience it. It was the least I could do after abandoning the project. I made a lot of mistakes when developing the project over a year ago now. The biggest mistake was letting the scope balloon out of control. Another issue was my nasty habit of over-engineering things when it comes to code. It's a habit that I'm still trying to shake, but I've gotten a lot better about it. If there's one lesson I've learned, it's that I need to "keep it simple, stupid." That applies to the game itself, too! The original build of the game was already great. My ambitions for the future of the project prevented me from seeing that. That's not to say there was no room for improvement - there definitely was! I teased the idea of revisiting the project in the original description of this game page. (Secretly, I was already working on it.) Taking what I have learned throughout my journey, I had two simple goals:

1. Bring the project back to the state of the original build. Due to the state the project was left in, this meant re-writing ALL of the game's code. The assets were all fine, though!
2. Polish the game to look and feel better than the original build. Otherwise, there is little point in replacing the original build. There was already added polish as a result of development after the original build, but there was still room for improvement. I made a point to not go overboard. This is still a prototype, after all.

Once those goals were met, I would have achieved two things: I would have a better foundation that could be easily expanded on, and I would be able to tell if the game is worth developing further.

Those goals are now complete!

I've come to the conclusion that the game is worth expanding. I don't want to expand too much, though. The project's director and I have come up with so-called "stretch goals", in ascending order of complexity:

• The ability to select where the bases start (this could aid in strategy)
• Settings and Options (graphics, sound, controls, etc.)
• The ability to customize parameters (like a sandbox mode! Configure health points, damage scaling, possibly even AI complexity, etc.)
• Difficulty Settings (basically presets for the settings above, determined through extensive testing and balancing)
• More game modes (to flesh out the game, a super stretch-goal)

This is not a roadmap, but rather just us laying out our thoughts. If there's another thing I've learned, it's not to over-promise - lest I under-deliver.

We hope you enjoy Cardboard Cats! Thank you so much for playing.