I hope you’re all having a great first day of the new year.

Looking back, Knob Cat Games has accomplished a lot in 2021. We started our company in June and have been steadily moving forward ever since. We went from a spark of an idea to a playable prototype.

We’ve got a full on character creator, 10 dungeon levels, an intricate loot system, a totally custom turn meter, and a sortable inventory.

It’s been tough building a company. I really learned a lot last year. A lot about game design, but also about the legal and accounting side of things. It certainly hasn’t been easy, but it really has been fun.

Looking forward at the new year we have so many things spread out before us. Every month DotO becomes more and more complete. I hope my vision of this game comes together to be something that many people can really enjoy playing.

Maybe I say this a lot, but I really want to play this game. It’s been an incredibly inspiring seeing my ideal game form together into something cohesive.

I hope you continue on the journey with us. I can’t wait to see what new secrets the Obelisk holds!

Cheers,
Joe
Executive Prime

Today is December 25th, commonly referred to as “Christmas”. But I decided I better not take the day off from the blog. Gotta keep up the good habits, you know.

With it being a holiday, it makes me think of lots of ideas for ways to celebrate in game, eventually. I’m hoping events can eventually be a big part of DotO. But that’s definitely getting ahead of myself.

I’ve been testing Prototype 5 daily for the past week and a half. It’s fun to pretend the game is further along and has the daily tasks and bounties. I really look forward to logging in and seeing other players too. All in good time though.

You can expect the Prototype 5 video update next weekend. I’m excited to record that. I can’t wait till the game is live and the update videos are of things that get pushed out for everyone to play. I still hope they’re enjoyable.

I have to keep reminding myself how much we still have to do. My wife played the Prototype for the first time and it really helped me see a lot of areas that still need improvement. For example, my “Tutorial Sword” idea just didn’t cut it. The sword is too good and you can’t replace it for several levels. But you really want to equip new things you find. But if you replace the Tutorial Sword, you’re character becomes powerless against the Glubs. So that’s how I learned it’s probably going to be better to start the game with junk than with a legendary sword.

I’ve been going back to the drawing board on a lot of things, the game is continually growing and evolving. But, I’ll save those for another update.

Anyway, I really hope everyone has a great holiday and stays safe! I’ll talk to you again next Saturday! ( Also known as New Year’s Day. )

Cheers,
Joe
Executive Prime

We’re coming up on the holidays really fast and pretty soon everyone is going to take a well deserved week or two off. But, before that we already have planned another small update to our Prototype.

DotO Prototype 5 has quite a few things added to it, but there’s three main things that really have me excited.

First, the Puke Rat is now in the game! It runs around the dungeons and it’s added a new level to the combat, because compared to the Glubs, these little guys hit HARD! We’re talking 10-20 damage here! Haha, okay okay, they’re still a trash mob and a character can easily have 2000HP if they want. But now you NEED to have some HP. In the last version, you could have 50HP and take 50 hits from Glubs. Now if you don’t strategize a bit with your stats, a Puke rat could take you out in just a few hits. (Color is coming to the Rats soon too!)

The second exciting thing is that the Mobs now drop loot. There’s still no drop rates and every item just flies out randomly, but killing enemies now gives rewards! And, wow, does my brain ever love the rewards. It’s incredibly satisfying seeing a bunch of Loot drop after you’ve battled your way through a bunch of wily, oversized rats.

And last but not least, this Prototype gives me the ability to set the stat ranges for modifiers on every rarity of Loot. No longer are we getting items with 1% Critical Damage. No longer do Block and Dodge have the same range. And finally boots give a reasonable boost to your Movement Speed.

There is still so much little tweaking to be done, bug fixes, and of course entire systems that still need built. Look forward to a DotO Prototype 5 video soon. And of course we’ll keep the podcast coming every two weeks as well. Next Saturday is Xmas, so I don’t know if I’ll blog or not? Until next time, hope you have a great time and stay crispy.

Cheers,
Joe
Executive Prime

We were recently asked when we would be in “Alpha” or “Beta”. The short answer is: it’s still too early to tell. Those terms are thrown around a lot with games and they’re really pretty arbitrary. Some games are basically done when they launch their Beta. Some games are really janky when in Beta.

The reason we are calling our builds “Prototypes” is because we are super early in development still and these builds are honestly just tests to see if the game is fun and worth continuing. ( Good news, it’s pretty fun!) We will most likely continue building on this Prototype, as things are actually going well.

When will the game be in Alpha? To me that is when every element is in the game but we still have work to do. Alpha is working, but lots of bugs. Right now we DON’T have a town, villagers, blacksmith, tutorial text, 90% of our mobs, and half of our character stats. Just to name a few things. As you can see, we still have a long way to go before we meet my definition of Alpha.

When will it be in Beta? Oh god. That is going to be the most asked question, I think. The unsatisfying answer is, “when it’s ready”. It could be two years, I honestly don’t know what is going to happen. For me, Beta means we’ve finished all elements of the game and there’s nothing left to add. At that point you just need people to to see what they can break. That’s what Beta Testers do. They get in and play hard and see what doesn’t work. Then we go back in and fix it.

What I don’t want to do is launch a broken game or open to Beta Testers too early. Some companies need to rush, and I understand that. My philosophy is to play things safer. We keep plugging away diligently and before you know it we’ll have a great game.

The only limiting factor is the budget. Everyone at Knob Cat has been working so efficiently and I am impressed with the progress. I’ve been trying to guess what the rest of development might be like and I think we’re on track. Obviously, our priority is getting the game released as soon as we can so that we can fund future development. This game is going to be continuously evolving and growing. Hopefully, it will bring years of entertainment to a lot of people.

I started this project because I want to play this game. That’s our driving force. I love this game and I want to play it. I want to launch and have others enjoy it so badly. I doubt anyone wants to play DotO more than me, so you can believe that I’m trying to get it out as soon as reasonably possible, while still maintaining everything that makes this game fun.

So, too long and didn’t read? I don’t know when Alpha, Beta, or launch will be, but I want to get there as bad as you!

Cheers,
Joe
Executive Prime