#DevCats

[artistsfuneral]

Daaaamn Fofino!!!

[zer0status]

A tragedy has struck! In three days the devcats team are launching an event in their game "A castle full of cats" where there is a new cat to find and the firs person to find it will get their own cat featured in the new game the team is working on.

The tragic part of this whole thing is that I am going on vacation on the same day that the event starts! My precious feline will sadly never join the ranks of Fofiño and Judy :'(

[crystalized-dreams]

My favorite Demos from February 2023's Steam Nextfest!

I was asked by a few people now which my favorites were and while I gave a short list on Discord, I figured I’d talk about it more here and what my favorite things were. This unfortunately got delayed a bit due to some health stuff, but many still have Demos up so I hope it’s still informative. Before I start, I want to at least bring up a few things including 5 games that will NOT be listed in…

[authorjlhilton]

My husband took this picture of our cat Buddy exploring our gaming hutch. If you're looking for a cat game to play, I recommend Sudocats, Building Full of Cats, Zodiacats and Castle Full of Cats!

[gmileycollier78]

[DEMO] Cats Love Boxes

[linuxgamenews]

Discover Feline Overlords and Hidden Objects with An Arcade Full of Cats

An Arcade Full of Cats is the ultimate hidden object game gets a release date for Linux and Windows PC. As a result of the creative efforts from Devcats. Available now on Steam. From DEVCATS, the innovative studio steered by our feline overlords comes a fresh game aptly titled 'An Arcade Full Of Cats'. Due to debut on November 11th, this isn't just another title. It's also an adventure that merges the nostalgia of classic arcades with the allure of cats. And the best part? It’s being released as a gift for Linux fans, with no price tag. At its core, 'An Arcade Full Of Cats' is a hidden object pursuit. But don't mistake it for a simple seek and find quest. You'll also travel through a rich tapestry of interactive history, along with two captivating characters, Fofiño and Leo. Their mission? To find the legacy of cats in the digital realm and help Leo attain his rightful status as a Devcat. Basically, it's a deep dive into the worlds where our feline companions have left their indelible mark. Within the 'An Arcade Full Of Cats' digital odyssey, you're given a broad canvas spanning five distinct timelines. The ultimate hidden object title has over 300 cats to find, and an exclusive arraY of 50 that remain hidden. Since each exploration promises a unique experience. Every time you embark on this adventure, you'll uncover new facets of the story and hidden feline secrets.

A Castle Full of Cats | Official Trailer

For those of us who have fond memories of traditional arcades, or have heard tales of their golden era, 'An Arcade Full Of Cats' offers a trip down memory lane. Since it evokes the same thrill and wonder, as those legendary places where many of us spent countless hours. Adding an extra layer of depth are the Steam achievements. These awards aren’t just trophies. They're also proofto your dedication, skill, and passion. As you collect them, they’ll be a reflection of your journey through the myriad worlds that this game offers.

The Essence of 'An Arcade Full Of Cats'

To simply label 'An Arcade Full Of Cats' as entertainment would be doing it a disservice. It's an homage to two universally beloved entities: cats and the digital playgrounds we've grown up with. While it caters to our penchant for discovery and nostalgia, it also tells a tale. One of feline companionship, tenacity, and the sheer joy of exploring. DEVCATS isn’t offering you a mere pastime; they’re inviting you to be a part of an interactive tale. The ultimate hidden object story where cats aren't just pets but companions in our digital escapades. Reminding us of their ever present influence in the world of interactive entertainment. Dive in, explore, and let 'An Arcade Full Of Cats' leave its paw prints on your heart on Steam. Due to release on November 11th. Plus you can also play the Demo on Linux and Windows PC.

[mabinogifantasylife]

looking forward to one thing and one thing only this year

[a-shrieking-cloud-of-bats]

so I played mabinogi back in the day on steam and now every time it shows me news from that game it feels like I am looking at an old friend dying on their deathbed

[nyancities]

Check out my Throne!

I’m also on the hunt for any information about the closed game Husky Express by devCAT.

[shdwtouch]

all things considered, I was... very productive today owo but I'm getting tired, so methinks I will hop off to mobile and get ready for sleep. kinda feeling like putting some mont/y p/ython on and chilling with my puzzle games, so I'll probably be around for a bit while I wait for my meds to kick in.

I plan to answer the rest of those unpopular opinion memes (thank you everyone who sent them !) tomorrow, as well as respond to the lovely anon I received. <3 as always, sending love to the dash. and, in the words of one of my fav youtubers, make it a good timezone by being kind to yourself and others !

[sedmikrascino]

v kazde cumblr ankete kde se hlasuje pro zenu x muze musim hlasovat pro tu zenu to je doslova girls code i kdyu je to mfing bohdalka, nenecham ji prohrat, jsem g i r l s g i r l (holcici holka? devce devcat? divka pro divky)

[veebs-hates-video-games]

Sure whatever, I can put ten game in a single post, because that's how many I managed to play since the last one. Only for like an hour each on average, but that was enough to finish multiple of them and decide the others weren't really doing it for me.

Clickolding was pretty good. I don't usually play stuff right when it comes out, but it was a couple bucks and I feel like I can trust Xalavier Nelson Jr./Strange Scaffold to do something interestingly weird at this point. It's the most about sex work anything's ever been without explicitly stating it's about sex work, and it will do its best to make you vaguely uncomfortable about that and the mundanity and boredom and desperation and detachment that can go along with it. It's also about the impact our actions have on the lives of people around us. A decent way to spend like an hour of your time.

I had a bit more mixed feelings about the first DLC for Voxelgram. On one hand it's good because more Voxelgram is good. On the other the larger puzzles don't really make it more challenging or anything, just more tedious. The last couple took me a bit over an hour each, and I saw someone else saying the last one took them significantly longer than that. I think I would've been happier if they were a bit smaller and didn't go on for so long, and they'd also fit on the screen better that way.

Something I didn't have mixed feelings about was Strawberry Vinegar, which was kind of disappointing because I tend to enjoy ebi-hime's stuff even if it's never my favorite stuff ever. This one I just got through the bad ending and stopped though because I had no interest in seeing what happens in any of the other routes. The way the characters were written just didn't feel right to me, like this is not a nine year old girl despite you telling me it is, and the vibes were definitely off. Oh well.

I have mostly positive things to say about Seraphim Slum though. It's very not afraid to get weird with things, and I mean Capital W Weird, not lolrandom rawr xd. A tagline/pitch like "Play as sapphic Lucifer and corrupt angels to fall...in love with you." is a good way to get my attention. It's at least initially on the surface "date cute angel girls", but it very quickly leans heavily into corruption = love = freedom/release/relief. Overall I definitely enjoyed the vibes and presentation and where it went with stuff, and I only have a couple issues with it: one is that some of the auto-advancing text is borderline unreadable on certain backgrounds, which is unfortunate but can be worked around by reading it in the log, and the other is that the routing/structure of it is pretty incomprehensible to me and I have no idea how to get to a couple parts of it I haven't seen yet. Maybe I'll check the DLC guide at some point when I can justify spending more money on stuff.

An Arcade Full of Cats was ok. Not my favorite Devcats game but fun enough that I finished it. As someone who remembers most of the eras it represents (not the DLC ones though) it was fun seeing the terrible cat puns on old arcade games and various other things they snuck in. There was definitely some artistic liberty taken with some of it, but they did a surprisingly good job capturing the feeling of a bunch of stuff I hadn't thought about in a long time in a hidden object game about cats. I feel no shame about using the cheat button for a few things in this one though because some of them were genuinely bullshit. Even after it pointed out a couple of them to me I could barely recognize them because they were so small they didn't look like anything. I don't remember having that problem in Building or Castle, at least not to that degree.

Gorogoa took me forever to finally try out. I really like the idea of it, and they do some clever stuff with the presentation and ways you interact with things that let them do fun stuff with how puzzles work. I don't really like actually playing it though. It does a bad job sometimes with letting you know which things are interactable or in what ways, and as a result I feel like it kept deteriorating into the typical point and click adventure game problem of rubbing every object on every other object until something happens. It's just not very enjoyable to know what the end goal of a puzzle sequence is but have no idea how to get there because it's looking for a very specific sequence of very specific events, and you tried something very slightly different that didn't work, and there's no useful feedback why.

TET's alright though, if a ten minute cooking game about preparing food for Vietnamese Lunar New Year sounds like your kind of thing. It's cute and funny and even includes recipes. Also it makes me want spring rolls. Also also it feels much better to play with a touchscreen.

I was extremely underwhelmed by Muse Dash, which also took me forever to get around to actually trying. The gameplay seems fine. What I saw in my brief time with it didn't really stand out to me, but there also wasn't really anything wrong with it either. What definitely is wrong with it though is that it kept pestering me to create an account even though I was just trying to play by myself offline, and also the UI seems completely unmanageable. Like the song picker would work but be mildly clunky if there were 20 songs in the game. It appears to have hundreds though, maybe more, and it's just really not suited for that. Yeah there appears to be a filter, but it's just a bunch of incomprehensible icons and very inaccessible for a new player. The art and music seemed ok though.

Speaking of ok, there's also Luna's Fishing Garden. It had some better than ok moments, but overall...it's ok. The default/challenging fishing minigame did not feel good to me at all, and the relaxed/easy mode was a bit boring, but I got over it because it turns out you don't actually have to do it all that much once the game gets going. It's pretty chill, and there's some cute pixel art and characters. Shout out to the "you caught a fish" animation in particular for being adorable. Most of the time I felt like progression was pretty well balanced, but toward the end there was definitely a significant amount of waiting around to get enough of certain resources that dragged it out longer than it really needed to. Aside from that though? It's ok!

And then since I said ten at the beginning, uh...Townscaper exists? Let's include that even though it wouldn't be hard to argue it's not a game. I'm pretty sure I got it in a game bundle though, and it's on Steam, so let's just go with that. It's fun to poke at for a little while and see what you can build with it. And that's about all there is to it.

Video games ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[thessalian]

Thess vs The Purpose of Demos

With it being Next Fest on Steam and everything, I got to thinking. Because, like, most AAA companies won't actually give you demos anymore. I think the last one I saw for any of the franchises I actually like was Mass Effect 3, and I would have bought that game anyway (though honestly, I would have bought it on the strength of the demo too, so hey).

So while I was walking out to the shops (taking a break in the weather that has been incredibly bipolar today - bright warm sunshine to torrential rain and thunderstorm with little in the way of transition), I got to thinking about how many games I've picked up on the strength of the demos alone the last few years. Now, I've played around 90 demos according to my looking over of my "Thess vs demos" tag (though I'm sure I'm missing a few), and a fair few of those I haven't got simply because they're not out yet. So ... here's the list of the ones that I have picked up, solely on the strength of the demos, either from memory or from my demo tag:

Dredge (pre-ordered, one of my favourites)

Wylde Flowers (played under a different name, again one of my favourites)

Spiritfarer (another favourite)

Grim Tides (bought both games in the series on the strength of the demo)

A Building Full Of Cats (Devcats is awesome, and I just keep adding their games onto my wishlist on the strength of that one demo)

Logic Town (I have over 200 hours on that damn game and it is my ultimate Zen)

I Was A Teenage Exocolonist

Growing Up

Witchy Life Story

PACK MY STUFF

Sapiens

My Dream Setup (think this one was a gift)

Lake (this one was definitely a gift)

Fabledom

Boxes

Interior Worlds

Locked Up

Book of Hours

Room of Depression

Cook Serve Forever

Fall of Porcupine

Stray Gods: The Roleplaying Musical

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie

Street of Secrets

Venba

House Flipper 2

Code Vein (gift; not my fault I can't play it due to janky keybinds)

WitchSpring R (was fine until they made it controller only post-demo)

So that's more than a quarter of the ones on the list. Of those, sixteen aren't even out yet, five of the ones I played were more up front about requiring a controller than the two at the bottom of my list of purchased games, three timed out before I got around to playing them, and at least thirty didn't make the wishlist at all, either because too janky, not my thing, or other priorities. The rest ... well, the rest and the "not out yet" is why my Steam wishlist is exactly 130 games big.

It makes me sad, honestly. AAA companies will do all the flashy marketing stuff and prevent any reviews from coming out until at least release day, pushing for hype-based pre-orders and refusing to let anyone know what they're actually getting. Meanwhile, here's me buying all manner of games I'd never have otherwise heard of, much less touched, based on Steam going, "LOOK! DEMOS FOR GAMES!" Half the time I wonder if it's that they have no faith in their product. Then I remember that it's more that they don't care; they just want as many people as possible to buy it immediately on release if not sooner. They're perfectly happy to put up any barriers they can to an informed purchase for ... just as a for-instance, people like me, who is literally unable to play certain games and really need to have any given game in my hands for at least a few minutes to figure out whether a game is one I can play or not.

But ... like ... take Veilguard, for instance. It doesn't look like one I can play. Watching the gameplay left me with a migraine that still hasn't 100% quit yet because of all of the camera movement, and the ARPG feel of the gameplay looks like something I might find it fairly painful to do - maybe even impossible, depending on the day. But if I could have it in my hands, see the accessibility options, find a playstyle I could work with, I would be a lot more inclined to buy it. Now I have people all over reassuring me that the accessibility options will surely be enough (even though they're actually refusing to talk about those in Q&As at the moment) and that of course I'll find a playstyle that's right for me ... and yet I have the memory of playing the closed beta of Secret World: Legends and being unable to play. Of getting Code Vein and finding that the limitations they set on changing keybinds means I can't use an entire ability suite. Of buying WitchSpring R and having to return it immediately upon starting the game because while the demo didn't require a controller, the finished game did. Getting Jedi: Fallen Order and discovering just how ARPG it is and how hard it is to find keybinds that work for me given my limitations. Of having a game I really want - actually owning it - and being unable to play because of things I didn't know before I bought the thing (or it was bought for me, which is somehow worse).

So ... yeah, I'm frustrated that the AAA gaming space would rather obfuscate with marketing hype instead of letting us make an informed decision, with the end result that I either avoid games for a long time (if not forever) ... or risk ending up with a new addition to the collection of very expensive games that I only find out after the fact that I cannot play.

...Basically, MORE DEMOS, PLEASE.

[flipsiding]

Happy Birthday to Me (and Flipsyde) ~! Thanks to Mabinogi for being a huge part of my inspiration and growing up companion <3

Pixel Mabinogi Characters and Devcat Logo belong to Mabinogi, this work is purely for fanart purposes :)

[gmileycollier78]

[DEMO] A Tower Full Of Cats

[cosmicgardencreative]

Vindictus - F2P Action MMORPG & Why We Love It

Hi all, it's been a minute since Ismaire and I got to let our hair down, so I'm just gonna take a sec to share my love of Vindictus. 

I don't always talk about how a game is underrated, but man, I will stand by Nexon/DevCat's first free-to-play action MMORPG. I've heard many people put it down for how "unoptimized" this game is. I'm not a PC gamer, but I feel that with today's technology, you can definitely play this game on today's graphics standards. 

Obviously this isn't a comparison to the new Vindi in development, but I'm just impressed to see how far this MMO has come.

PaikMyungJin (left, Evie/Choi) and Ismer (right, Lann/Ismaire) make a comeback to Vindictus in 2024.

The game can overall feel pretty simple and low-graphics to some, but frankly, I just see that as the dev team being smart with their resources. The only hang-up I can think is if you have a slow internet connection, it might be a difficult game to play with others, but it's pretty solo-friendly for the first 2-3 seasons. 

Kinkoku (left, Sou/Ismaire) wondering what Biseuri (Sylas/Haegi/Choi) is thinking about.

I'll have to do a separate post that goes into the game's history. There's so much that could be said when the game first rolled out on October 13, 2010 for the US release. Izzy and I dating coincided with us finally having a game we could play together, since a lot of console games weren't prioritizing couch co-op as much (except for Resident Evil 5-6). [[On a separate side note, I just realized where our points of influences could be traced back to about here. All the more reason why we just love some of our old fandoms...]]

The nice thing about Vindictus is that you can play it solely with a keyboard (our preferred controls), a mouse + keyboard, or a gamepad. The game is pretty versatile for people with preferences. Most of the characters respond pretty well to the keyboard controls. The few that I noticed were difficult to maneuver in combat was Kai with his bow and crossgun, and Hurk with his teide (sword + shotgun combo), more for precision reasons than anything. Ultimately, do what's comfortable for you!

Alts, alts, and more alts!

Yes, this game will make you play so many alts. And it's worth it. I find this comparable to FFXIV's multi-job branches that your WoL can unlock, but instead of it all stockpiled to one character, you have multiple MCs with various backstories and even special connections to one another! This game being so lore-heavy actually deserves to have multiple characters for the player to explore with. You'll find over time that you'll catch some things you didn't think about from your first playthrough, and it'll just hit you differently... 😭 

Kiena (Fiona/Choi) slicing through enemies.

BradieHU (bg left, Charon/Izzy) and Lycapollos (fg right, Achel/Choi), hecking over a Kobold commander.

PaikMyungJin firing her lasers at a laser cannon/golem.

Ismer slipdashing past the lasers for the finishing kill.

Can't guarantee great screenshots 100% of the time, but the more you play, the better the chances :) 

______________________________________________________________

Final thoughts:

Being a casual player, I personally can't give a testimony on how the overall MMO culture is like in Vindictus nowadays. We did have a generally good experience since we weren't the types to go ham about stat comparisons and just genuinely want to have fun. You'll likely run into cool people as long as you're a nice and polite gamer. But of course, we weren't exempt from being driven away by guild dramas, which then later caused us to have an on-and-off hiatus from the game since 2014...  (wow it's a decade already...) Just be prepared that you may get inundated with a lot of female characters in very... curvy skins. Some of the costume/outfitters come with special enhancements, and Vindictus really doesn't hide the fact that it's a rated-M game 😳🪭 Personally it does shock me, but at the same time, props to people who aren't afraid to flaunt it 😂

Moonglitter (Eira/Izzy) not afraid to flaunt her "All Curves Revealing Off Shoulder Set". 

Because there's so much content to push through, DevCat did their due diligence in balancing the first 3 seasons of content with gear that rewarded for progressing. If you do appreciate a little bit of a challenge, though, I recommend keeping on the lowbie gear till you know you need the damage boost. And if you ever find yourself not liking the aesthetics, the game is usually good about giving you aesthetic coupons for you to "rent" through events and the AP shop. 

As far as solo/duo-ing experiences go, Izzy and I were able to catch up to Season 3 on our own. We found that we're not able to go through Redeemers currently, but I'm curious to see how well we might be able to duo the battles soon as we're properly geared from endgame :) I'm only hesitant to pug with others because we're not sure if our internet connection could handle a crowd of 2+ external connections. But then again we're working adults who pay for good speed so maybe? lol 

By the way, you get to choose two paths of either a Dark Knight or a Paladin:

Scaley Edgelord

Shiny Sparkle Knight

Thanks for taking the time to read my little appreciation post for Vindictus. If you're another Vindi-fan, feel free to comment on your experience here! Vindictus/Mabinogi Heroes is such a niche fandom, so I'd be happy to chat with others who love the gameplay and lore ^_^ I'm very inclined to share some Vindictus fanart in the near future, so let's have fun!