Catnappers

Short Pitch

A chaotic cooperative game about putting cats in a cat cafe to bed before the time runs out

Links

Itch Download

Official Website

About the Project

My Roles

Designer & Lead Programmer
(Systems, Multiplayer, Gameplay, UI)

Team Size

10 People (4 Programmers)

Development Time

1.5 Years (still under development)

Engine & Language

Unity Engine, C#

Platforms

Windows and Web

Long Desciption

As employees of a cat café during closing hours, you must work together to run around frantically and put every cat to bed. How many cats can you nap?

With multiple types of cats with varying traits, it's each player's job to use teamwork and the environment to their advantage in order to bring as many cats to bed as possible before the time runs out!

Game Type

2D Co-op Couch Game

Project Context

Student capstone project, turned indie game

Presented at PAX Aus 2024

Presented at TGX March 2025

What I Did

My Roles:

Lead Programmer
Associate Producer
Designer

My Responsibilities

Planning, organisation, and delegation of tasks for other programmers
Upskilling and assisting other programmers
Design and implementation of various gameplay systems and features
Creation of UI systems
Github repository management
QA Testing and bug fixing

Lead Programmer:

As lead programmer, it was my duty to direct and assist the other programmers in their duties. I organised regular meetings to discuss progress and created a teamhood for task organisation. I made sure to give them tasks that they had the skills to complete and were happy to do. Whenever my programmers wanted help, I was always there to assist.

UI System Creation:

Apart from directing and assisting the other programmers, I also made several contributions to the project myself.

One of my big contributions was the creation of most of the UI systems, such as the main menu and its pages. This included both level selection and lobby systems, which needed to handle character selection among players of either keyboard or gamepad input.

QA Testing and bug fixing:

Throughout the projects, I made sure the project was as bug-free as possible. I would always test associated systems before pushing a commit, and fix issues wherever they came up.

I also ran various user playtests for both feedback and bug testing.

Game Design:

Though my main role was programmer, I also had a hand in the design of various systems and features.

One such feature was the long cat, a cat so long that it requires two people to carry it.

I also designed the garden level, iterating it from feedback from other teammates until its current version was made.

Being the lead programmer of the project was not what I expected going into it. After meeting with the other programmers, it became clear that I was one of the only ones with Unity experience, and no one else wanted to be the lead. Due to this, I ended up volunteering for the role.

I had never been a lead programmer before, so it was a challenge learning what to do. For the first few weeks, I was mostly focused on the management of other programmers, rather than any coding myself. I organised meetings, planned what needed to be done and delegated tasks. The biggest issue was the other programmers' lack of Unity experience. My strategy around this was to upskill the programmers by giving them tasks fit for their skill level, which would challenge them enough so they learn, but not too much to discourage them. I would do this by writing task descriptions that gave a vague direction of what they need to do and how to do it, but not detailed enough so they still need to think.

Game Screenshots

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