Cat-In-A-Box

Some of you might have seen this promotional image we put out last week (click for full size):



The important part is in the very first comparison line: "Sequel to something I wrote in four hours one evening at university when I was bored." This is absolutely true. Mostly.

In my first year of university, one evening I was bored and sitting at the computer. I was still a terrible programmer. (Today, I am merely a sub-par programmer. University: It Works!) I had Visual Basic (yes, I know) open in front of me, and I thought to myself, "you know, I've always wanted to write an RPG. I'm not getting out of this chair until I've written an RPG." A couple of hours later (again, terrible programmer), I had blasted through the development of what could barely be called an RPG.

The end result was called THE WORLD"S FATETST RPG (or WFR for short), because I didn't stop to correct spelling errors. The graphics were all crude MS Paint abominations. The map was 9 tiles wide by 256 tiles tall, and enemy strength was a function of your y-coordinate. And the enemies, of course, were various colors and sizes of squares. Object of the game: reach the end, in as little time as possible.

You can play a Java port of this "game" here. (Brace yourself.)

Back so soon? I don't blame you. It's a very roughshod game. But with that clock pasted on, it suddenly became some sort of sadistic contest between me and my friends, and it took root in my head.

Over the next ridiculously large number of years, I kept teasing the development of a sequel to my friends, but it never materialized. (Fastar! is not that particular sequel; I may still yet produce it for Cat-in-a-Box, but it will be a much different game than either WFR or Fastar.) The teasing kept the idea of WFR alive, though, and when it came time to pour my efforts into a new project for Cat-in-a-Box, John suggested I bring WFR back.

Of course, I didn't want to just port WFR verbatim -- it would have been hideous and tedious. Happily, I had also been brainstorming control schemes for simple action games, so I put those two ideas together to form what was then christened WFAR -- the World's Fatetst Action RPG.

I put together two quick doodles showcasing two different ideas I had for the style. This is the one that eventually became Fastar!:



This style inherited a lot directly from WFR: the guy's basic appearance and hairstyle, the enemy squares, the curiously bent language. So there you have it; much of Fastar's absurdity is simply personal homage to a game that basically no one played, developed in an intentional hurry and embracing all consequences.

As a curious aside, here's the other concept doodle:



This would have been a much more atmospheric direction, based on mystery and fantasy with a slightly more "logical" interpretation of events. At the initial concept stage, spells were not yet part of the game, so I'm not sure how they would have worked in this style, but otherwise the basic gameplay idea would have been the same.

So why did we choose the first style? For me, it came down to remembering how much fun it was to write "You encounter a Huge Red Square!". But more than that, John felt that the bizarre cartoony style was a purer distillation of my personality, and he's right. Fastar! is very much "me".

We call ourselves Cat-in-a-Box, but really, there's three cats in this here box. Blue Defense, Blue Attack and Red Conquest are "John games"; they're his brainchildren and they exude his personality. Fastar! is our first "Henry game". You've not yet seen a "Victor game", but they're coming. Everyone works on every game, but each game's soul comes from just one of us. Point is, the future of Cat-in-a-Box will be quite varied, and quite exciting.

For now, I'm completely ecstatic at the positive reaction Fastar! has received. To all our supporters, thank you from the bottom of my heart; and we hope you stick around with us for the long run, because we've got lots of places to go.

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