Let’s talk about the Kitties, mischievous schemers with unpredictable temperaments and attention spans. I enjoy a game with player powers and in a cooperative game, I enjoy finding the best combos of powers. So I knew that I wanted the kitties to have different strengths, making for interesting combos of skills each time you play. I tried to span the different elements of the game: moving, building, collecting, and fighting. My initial list was:
Boss Cat: move another kitty as your own
Tough Cat: bonus to fighting with the dog
Fat Cat: Increased carrying capacity
Zoomie Cat: Additional actions
Smart Cat: Improved build capabilities
Eventually, I moved away from passive mouse catching with traps to active mouse hunting, so I ended up adding:
Mouser: Improved mouse hunting
And these are basically the kitties I have today. The details of the implementation have changed over the iterations but the character descriptions really haven’t. I’ve come up with other ideas over the course of design, for example, an Outdoor Cat who can leave one side of the house and re-enter on the other side or a Scaredy Cat who can evade the Dog. Some of these have found other ways into the game, either through the Distraction Deck or through Gear, and others are just getting saved for a future expansion :-)
Right now the Kitties don’t have names. I’ve been thinking that a vote to name the Kitties might be a fun activity as part of a Kickstarter campaign. I’ve also been thinking that maybe the game should come with a space where you can name the Kitties yourself. This could also be an interesting stretch goal if this ever goes to Kickstarter.
