In our game, Catopia, we aim to create a cat colony sim, combining the cutesy themes of woodland critters with the hardened shell of a war game, similar to Root. Value-wise, we want to show that not even adorable fantasy armies of anthropomorphized cats are immune to resource politics, ruthless expansionism, and manifest destiny.
To do this, we created a simple loop using two core resources for now: cats and food, both of which serve more than one purpose. Cats can be used to hunt for food, and food can be used to either train existing cats/buff their stats, or recruit more cats. These cats are then sent out on conquest missions to expand their territory, where they can battle other cats. On victory, these enemy cats can be recruited, and/or their food supplies can be stolen. We think we’ve created a multifaceted loop where cats not only hunts food and food not only recruits cats, but also where cats can recruit other cats, which can beget exponentially more food, all for the end goal of conquering a mini-map of cat nations.
Once we digitize this loop, we’re trying to think of ways we can expand on this gameplay.
- Introducing additional stats and resources that can serve multiple purposes. For example, money can be introduced which can help in both recruiting other cats and provide fancier tools for hunting. Or each cat can have powerful specialized abilities that make it better at hunting or at training or at battling.
- Additionally, the whole overarching goal of expanding the cat nation on a mini-map is still vague to our team. Will opposing cat territories have access to special facilities, like hunting spaces that give 10x more food, or training grounds that give insane stat buffs? If so, maybe the players will have to puzzle out an optimal order to how they want to expand.
