So, Alpha Bugs...

1 - Colliders:  Yeah, we fell short, again.  I think once the new month comes, we will be asking some of our new volunteer testers to make a comprehensive list of every last building, prop, and NPC that is somehow still lacking a collider.

2 - The geese just don’t march far.  It seems that the paths that we spent a few hours laying out were never attached to the geese, meaning that they were stuck in an eternal  back-and-forth up by the Church.

3 - “Mood bars” still drain far too fast.  Yes- absolutely.  When we next release, the cats will not only go days without needing to be fed or played with, but the drain rates will be contingent upon what the cat is doing (for example: energy will drain far faster when the cat runs, as opposed to when it is walking/sitting/resting.)  The cats’ “Comfort level” should actually not drain at all - rather, it should fluctuate, as each cat feels more comfortable in different places/situations.

4 - Low-Q textures, even when playing Hi-Q.  This was the result of some mixup with our streaming mipmaps.  Somehow - the high-quality ones got eliminated, resulting in everyone’s alpha displaying the only ones it had: the low-Quality ones.

5 - No procedural soundtrack on the Mac - this mystifies us, but we’re working on getting a solution together.

6 - Still getting stuck when  trying to jump on boxes in Elizabeth’s house.  Our new controller is getting better, all the time - read more below!

7 - While it runs faster than before, performance is still not ideal.  I completely agree - when you look at the profiler, you see there is a LOT of extraneous stuff going on.  I can see the game’s performance improving by at least 10%, and possibly by over 20%, when we release the public Beta.

8 - Typos in the manual.  Argh- what can I say?

9 - Chickens are still WAY too small. I keep fixing that- dunno how it got past us, yet again…

10 - Six Bushes - three by NamaStay, and three by the pet cemetery, were lacking textures.

Overall, we’re getting reports that this Alpha - while limited by the lack of a dialogue/quest system - was a solid improvement over the previous one, despite all of the above.  We now have eight months, before release of the Beta demo, and I am more confident than ever that we will make this deadline - and this time, there will be FAR fewer bugs.

The other day, we were able to pull off a live cast over on YouTube, without things completely going haywire (although it seems the build I was playing had a bug that was NOT in the Alpha - the poor cats couldn’t sit- each time they tried to, they just got right back up again!) We were able to show off a few new features that we were able to integrate, AFTER alpha release, such as:

The preliminary “Hunt” action:  This means that your cat no longer will have to wander into a “recharge bubble” to get a bit of entertainment, and food.

“Hiding Grass:” These are patches of grass that the cats can duck into, should they need to avoid detection.

I think in a month’s time, we’ll do another YouTube livestream - we’ll have a LOT more to show off!

This next item is probably only of interest to Maine locals, but I felt that I should mention:  In two weeks’ time, we’ll be hosting another attempt at a walking tour of Peaks Island.  The last one fell through, due to REALLY bad preparation.  If you happen to be in the Portland Maine area in early May, consider dropping by!

For those waiting for confirmation of their in-game name placements, we’ll be clearing out all outstanding requests over the weekend!

If you have yet to receive your premiums - as always - please drop us a line, or message us here - SEE EVERYONE AGAIN NEXT FRIDAY- THANKS AGAIN FOR YOUR SUPPORT, PATIENCE, AND CONFIDENCE!