CAT Interstellar News

[h2]Finally[/h2]
I am so flippin excited to announce what everyone probably already guessed:
[h2]CAT Interstellar: Episode II[/h2]

That's right, we're officially developing the second installment of the CAT Interstellar series and it's gonna be nuts!!! We got Martian Rovers, Marines hunting Android 42, possibly the ability to fly this thing


and best of all - some closure to the story arc ːDOGV4ːːDOGV4ːːDOGV4ːːDOGV4ːːDOGV4ː

[h3]Head over to the new store page now for CAT Interstellar: Episode II for more content, story, and development updates.[/h3]

[h2]Thank You[/h2]
I mainly wanted to you this post to thank everyone who helped to support this game. Development of Episode I was incredibly difficult, frustrating, and there were times I genuinely thought about giving up and abandoning the game in Steam's Early Access graveyard. It's a sad reality that most all indie games never make it to a full release. I didn't realize the technical, financial, and mental hurdles I was up against when I started this game so I mean this in the most literal sense: [h3]I could not have done this without you[/h3]
The interactions with the community is something I didn't really expect when I started but was blown away at how engaged people were. There are people who have been following this game for 5 years and still drop in to show their support and give input. At some point I even started appreciating the hecklers. I mean seriously, this game was actually good/bad enough to catch their attention. They noticed us and even that's pretty cool. I think this next installment is going to go a little smoother. I'm definitely more prepared considering I made almost every mistake you could with the first game. I really enjoy writing science-fiction and developing games. I also love engaging with the community.



Just to recap some of the stuff WE did:

• We shipped over 100,000 units of the game on PC, Linux, and PlayStation.
  
• We had a compitition to guess what type of breed my dog was.
  
• you all fixed must of the bugs for me, and basically wrote the story [ 1, 2. 3].
  
• My dog was promoted to Senior Programmer and then somehow Chief Financial Officer.
  
• I raised the price in a get rich quick scheme.
  
• We vastly improved the main character.
  
• We used proceeds from the game to sponsor a number of dogs in foster care.
  
• That isn't even half of the fun we had making this game and it's just the beginning.
  

One other thing I never really mentioned was that when I was developing the game full time I was working from home. One of the benefits to this was my wife and I were able to foster a lot more dogs than we could of otherwise. We fostered and found forever homes for over 34 dogs during the ~2 years I developed the game. I just thought you might want to know that you helped support that. And as fate would have it, we actually just started fostering dogs again after about a year long break when my son was born. Meet Lando and Max.

Don't let the freckles fool you. They're little terrorists.

[h2]What can you do to help?[/h2]
Aside from donating all your money to us the most helpful things you can do to support the game are:

• [h3]Reviewing The Game
• [h3]Follow and Wishlist CAT Interstellar: Episode II
• [h3]Spay and Neuter your animals[/h3]
  

[h3]Also,I feel like like a goober saying this but, I guess follow us on twitter? It's meh but I post a lot of screenshots and videos there.[/h3]

Lastly, if there's other smaller indie games you like to play. I would highly recommend dropping in their forums and giving them a piece of your mind (in a good way). Most developers would love to talk to you about their game even if it's about the problems with the game. It can be a lonely world out there.

You read that correctly, against all conventional thinking I’m actually going to raise the price of this game to $9.99 USD. The one thing I want all the newcomers here to know is… we have no idea what we’re doing. Seriously, not a clue. BUT I’ve learned a little bit over the last 5 years releasing this game on Steam and the PlayStation Store and I can assure you I won't make an extra dime directly by raising the price.
[h3] "How is that possible?!?" You might ask.[/h3]
It's simple, nobody buys this game. We only sell ~1 unit a week If the game isn’t on sale and I still intend to do HEAVY sales like we always have. So, if you’re thinking about buying the game before the price increase DON’T!!! wait until the next sale on April 22nd and pick it up for $0.99!!!

So why increase the price? One thing I learned too late is that companies must make money to stay in business. Not us though because we donated most of our profits to animal shelters like chumps ːsteamsaltyː (I'm actually very proud of what we were able to accomplish as a community). Most distributors and publishers need to make money to pay their employees and keep the ball rolling. I guess that’s understandable but because of that they generally don’t see games under $10 as financially viable to promote. So, by raising the price we gain a lot more leverage to promote the game.

Currently, my personal goal for CAT Interstellar is to get as many people to play it as possible. I really enjoy the game development process, writing science fiction stories, and I absolutely love interacting with the community. Maybe one day, years from now, I’ll be seasoned enough at game development to do this as a career but I currently still work a full time job and have a family so it takes me a lot longer than other studios to get content out. Additionally, I totally understand all the criticisms and critiques you all have voiced about this game. There are thousands of forum posts and reviews and I have read every single one of them and tried to respond to most… Except the latest forum post “Hey. DEV WHY U MAKE SO HARD WORK FOR NOTHING???” which I’m still trying to think of a clever response. Seriously though, I can't even begin to tell you how blown away I am that people bought this game 5 years ago and are still active on the forums.

As for the big announcement, there’s gonna be a sequel and it’s gonna kick some major ass. I wasn’t shoveling manure when I said I understand the criticisms. As a first-time game developer, publisher, and writer there was a number of mistakes I made (mainly with the story) that I didn’t even realize until it was too late. I totally see how the game seems disconnected but it is not and I fully intend to close a lot of those holes with Episode II.


I really believe this game will carry a lot more weight when viewed in the context of the whole story arc. the primary purpose of the CAT Interstellar story is to introduce a faster-than-light (FTL) drive called The Stutter Drive. A concept I started while getting my physics degree and have been working on for 6 years!!!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

As an example of my failure to properly story tell (spoiler): The Stutter Drive is a derivative technology of the stutter assembler seen here:


I’m a little disappointed than none of you picked up on that considering I made no mention of it in the game or dialog. The game is littered with similar references like this to Earth, the U.N.C., and even the moon. Btw, the cat at the end doesn’t die. In fact, Nature is about to make a major comeback on Earth. I’ll be dropping a lot more details about the sequel leading up to an actual announcement but we’re going to do a episodic structure. You can also follow us on twitter @ionizedgames where we’ll be tweetering things.

Lastly, the CAT Interstellar: Episode II will be a separate application. There's just no realistic way to merge the two after 5 years of engine updates but I figured one thing I could do is open a beta branch so you all can have access to the second episode at least through the beta. I'll also try to dig through the mountain of Steam documentation and see what else is possible. I genuinely appreciate your support and I couldn't have made it this far without you. I hope you're all buckled in for the next iteration of the CAT Interstellar universe because it's gonna be nuts!!!


P.S. I know people have strong feelings whenever cost is mentioned. As always, you can be a harsh/blunt to me as you want since I'm just a computer but please be respectful to other users.

A favorite site among Martian Advertiser selling the idea of a terraformed Mars. Turing Canyon was formed from millions of gallons of defrosted water runoff caused by the initial nuclear bombardment stage of the planet. The storm pressure above the canyon raises the barometeric pressure to 9psi allowing for larger Earth origin fauna and flora to live without pressure suits.

Rovers are required to traverse the terrain.

Ziggy, our junior programmer, has shown incredible potential in economic theory and so we’ve promoted him to Chief Financial Officer. His first act as CFO is to dramatically increase profits by making CAT Interstellar a Pay-To-Win… er… I mean, Free-To-Play game.



It is worth noting that Kitty, the Treasurer at Ionized Games, has concerns that a single player game with no microtransactions, streaming income, or advertisers could potential fail to generate any profit but...
We try not to take cats too seriously so…


On a more serious note, I wanted to thank everyone for their support of this goofy little project. In total we’ve shipped about 100,000 units through Steam, Humble Bundle, and the Playstation Store. It’s worth noting that the vast majority of those were purchased through bundles and Steam Sales. While I honestly never expected the game to produce any profit, it grossed on average $8,000/yr over the 4 years it’s been on the market (after taxes and royalties). I’m very honored to say that the bulk of that revenue went to either my wife and I fostering over 30 animals or was donated to our local humane society. I tried not to promote that fact until we had essentially cut the revenue stream since it seemed like a sleazy sales tactic. I wanted to mention it now since it was you all who helped make that happen.

It has been a bizarre and amazing experience to be able to help our four-legged friends through a weird little Indie game on Steam. This will be our last sale before the game goes completely free.


This most recent update contains small map modifications, bug fixes, and a suggestion from the community to reshuffle the last two chapters to better separate the epilogue from the main story (insert joke about how it still makes no sense and is a tech demo).

Again, thank you for all the help, feedback, and support you've given over the last 4 years. I truly could not have done this without you nor would I have wanted to. The only regret I have is being so slow at developing CAT Interstellar 2. Between a full time job and a kid on the way I’ve had to totally reevaluate how to maintain a development schedule without burning out or neglecting other responsibilities. With that being said, I'm hoping I'll have some content of CAT Interstellar 2 to share soon!!!


Fixed Meow Interstellar Achievement not working