Nintendo Life: Let's go right into the big topic: cats. They have had a bit of a moment in the indie scene in recent years. From the perspective of somebody who is making a cat game, what is it that makes them so appealing for developers?
Matt Wood, Double Dagger Studio: I think cats have been popular on the internet since it was first created. I think one of the things that's interesting about cats is that they have the type of personality that is conducive to people like myself who maybe spend a little bit too much time online.
But I also think that they are just endearing. They're super cute, obviously, and it's hard to not love cats when they look like this all the time. They're pretty much the perfect pet!
As to why they became popular in video games, what I've learned is that trends happen not necessarily because people are following them, but more because people are influenced by everything around them. That's why we end up converging on the same trends a lot of the time, I think.
So, apart from the rhyming title, there was no chance that this game was ever going to have an animal other than a cat as its star?
As its star? No, I don't think so. I think maybe the only other option would have been a hedgehog because that's one of my son's favourite animals. But our favourite animal is a cat, and that's always been the best choice for us.
Image: Double Dagger Studio The cat that you've got in this game does things that are so specifically cat-like — knocking things off shelves, cleaning itself, etc. — how did you go about nailing those animations?
I've been a cat person my whole life. I've been around cats and I spend a lot of time hanging out with them, especially since I'm working from home. Early on, when I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with the game, I found an animator [Micah Breitweiser] who is not only an amazing animator but is also a cat person. And she and I really clicked on how we wanted the cats to be represented.
it's a great thing that cosiness is becoming more popular and almost becoming a genre of its own
There are previous cat games that I think do a good job of creating those 'icon cats,' which are cute but they're not realistic. They don't invoke that sort of silliness or movement or joy in the way that a real cat does. So for me, it was about capturing that cuteness, fluidity, movement and feeling that you get from just watching cat videos, for example. You can't replace cat videos with something else — they just invoke a certain emotion that is unique. And so capturing that was really important.
When I found this animator, she just got it. We went through a few iterations of how realistic versus how silly versus how clumsy. I kept trying to push her in the direction of more silly, more clumsy!
Was there any mocap or was it all about watching videos and your own cats for reference?
No mocap. We've often joked about putting little dots on my cat and putting out a video, joking that this is how we made the animation. But no, it's all handmade.
Our animator, Micah, did everything by hand. And it really is just a combination of experience and watching cat videos. We would just share cat videos all the time! I would either film my own cats doing something, or we'd find some reference of a cat video online (and there's no shortage of those) and use that as inspiration for things that we want to try.
Image: Double Dagger Studio Are there any details that you think only cat people will notice?
There are a couple of little things that I love. During the outro, there's a moment where Kitty is sitting there and their ears go backwards. Cats' ears are very expressive with how notice things in the world and it's a really cool moment. Of course, it's because there's some noise behind, which the camera then turns to and you see it, but it's one of those little moments of acting that I think only cat owners would pick up on.
There are so many of them, but that's the one that sticks out to me.
Looking at releases on the Switch eShop, there's a danger of cosy fatigue and potentially cat game fatigue as well. How do you set yourself apart when the games around you are becoming increasingly cosy?
Yeah, that is a concern. I think for us, as long as we're making a great game and we're making interesting characters with something that's going to appeal to people, it's going to find its audience.
For us, it's a great thing that cosiness is becoming more popular and almost becoming a genre of its own. What happens, in that case, is you discover that there are more people out there who've been desiring this sort of experience all along. I don't really see it so much as a trend, I see it as an emergence of a new type of game with new audiences that are looking for new things to play.
this game is all about distractions
I'm not too worried about it. Cats are going to be universal, they don't have an expiry date. I think people are always going to be interested in cats and the cosiness is always going to appeal to somebody looking for something nice and relaxing to play. I think that the Nintendo eShop is the perfect place for the game. I think the Switch is the perfect place for this game.
One of the things that's always been really important to me as the designer of this game in particular is that I conceived of the game with my kids early on and that has been a driving factor for me throughout. It's why I think it's a really good fit for the Switch in particular because I want other people to be able to play this game with their kids in the same way that I play a lot of Nintendo games.
I played Mario Odyssey with my kids, but there are a lot of games that we'll just play side by side. There aren't enough games like that. So that's a big thing that was driving me. I want parents to feel comfortable with their kids playing it and play with them at the same time.
Image: Double Dagger Studio Did your kids play any of the game during development?
Oh yeah, they're playtesters. They're in the credits. They were involved much more early on and then of course school and activities got in the way, but as time went on they became heavy playtesters of the game and they'd give me their opinions and feedback all the time.
Did they tell it to you straight?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. They don't hold back! [Laughs]
What are the key aspects that go into maintaining player attention in a game that is all about cosiness?
Our original goal was never about the cosy aspect being an important part of the game. It just sort of naturally happened that way. I wanted it to feel inviting and I wanted parents to feel like they can play with their kids, so there's a sort of cosiness about it there. I also think cats have a cosiness as soon as you start watching them nap.
But on keeping players interested, one of the things we ended up leaning into was that this game is all about distractions. We have a main goal, we have quests, things that you do, but we wanted to make sure that the world was filled with things that you could just get distracted by. One of my goals as a designer is that when you're in any given area, you want to be able to see at least three things that you can do — there has to be something that's going to attract your attention. So everywhere you are, you find something new and interesting to go and do.
Breath of the Wild is gonna be an inspiration for everything I do going forward
I don't mean to go too far into this, but I'm in my mid-40s and I was diagnosed with ADHD this past year. For the first time, it's made me realise how much of that element is being put into my design of the game and how much it's influencing all of my decisions. It's a great thing!
Is that one of the reasons why the game is so exploration-based rather than objective-based?
When I left my old job, I suddenly had the opportunity to do whatever I wanted, and so making a game that catered to all the things I enjoy in other games was a perfect opportunity.
One of those things is exploring, discovering and trying new things — novelty. RPGs typically will have a main storyline and then they'll have side quests. I can't remember any RPG I've ever played where I didn't go, "Okay, here's the quest for the main storyline, great. I'm gonna go do all the side quests I can." That ended up becoming kind of the theme for our game, where you know there's a main quest but do you really want to do it when there are all of these other things you can do?
Image: Double Dagger Studio Untitled Goose Game was a title that came up in our hands-on coverage. Was that a direct point of inspiration for you and were there any other animal-based or exploration-focused games that you looked at during development?
It's hard to say that it wasn't an inspiration because I had played the game and it was out. I think one of the things that [developer House House] did so well was that it set a precedent that this is something that people can enjoy. It's just this small-scale playground game based around chaos, so it definitely had some inspiration there.
One of the other inspirations was A Short Hike . It's a great bite-sized open-world game that was very influential in how I thought about the world and how I constructed things.
From the cat's perspective, it's their world, and humans are living in it
But inspiration comes from everywhere. Breath of the Wild is gonna be an inspiration for everything I do going forward, just because it's such a brilliant game with brilliant design. On the other end of the spectrum, inspiration comes from games like Dark Souls. That's one of those games that has amazing level design. For example, how you would discover a new thing in the world or see something and not quite know how to get it. It's that sort of Metroid -style level design that I get inspired from.
Now I'm interested to see if there are any Dark Souls touchstones that I can spot as I play through the game!
I don't think so. I almost put a reference in there, but I... Yeah, I... You'll have to wait and see.
There seem to be multiple ways of solving each problem in the game. Was it important for you to give players that sense of choice?
Yes, in a way. One of the biggest things that is important to me is having that sense of play where players can be in an area and feel like they can just play and mess around. It has to feel like there are things that they can do but not like they're being herded into anything in particular. The game doesn't funnel you or force you into anything. It's very open and we want to let players discover things in ways that feel natural to them.
That's really important to me as a player. I don't like games that are very funnelled and strict, I want to mess around. So that's how the game was thought about and designed.
Image: Double Dagger Studio What would you say was the biggest development challenge that you had in making the game?
The biggest challenge was the fact that I was making a four-legged character. It's something I've never done in my life before. Two-legged characters are easy because technically you're dealing with a cylinder or a box which is very easy to move around, but as soon as you turn that thing on its side, now suddenly you have a very different situation and you need animations and collisions to match so it all feels good.
That was by far the biggest hurdle. Being able to say "I'm not quite happy with this," and then spending the next year and a half trying to make it in a way that I was comfortable with and that I felt other people would enjoy as well.
We noticed during our Summer Game Fest preview that there were some bugs in the game at the time. What work has been done to smooth them out?
Work doesn't stop on the game. If you take any game in development and you want to do a demo, you have to take your work apart and make it as demo-ready as possible, which means you're going to end up with a couple of bugs. Since then, we've gone through all of our certification processes. We've gone through thousands of hours of playtesting. And we work constantly on the game.
I think I've cut too much cool content to not release it later
The goal is to ship a game that is absolutely bug-free, and we hope we can achieve that. If we don't, you know, that's what happens. But our goal is to have a completely solid and enjoyable game for everybody by the time we ship.
One thing that cat owners probably won't immediately relate to, is that your cat talks. Where did that decision come from?
I wanted to make the game from the cat's perspective as much as possible. This isn't a game where you're a human controlling a cat. This is a game where we wanted you to play as a cat in a cat's world. From the cat's perspective, it's their world, and humans are living in it.
With that in mind, we wanted to make sure that your cat could communicate with other animals because we have other characters in the game that are very expressive. They have lives, hobbies, ambitions and goals. So we wanted to make sure that we could have your character communicate with them in an interesting way because I like humour in games. I love interesting, fun and quirky characters and I think it's really hard to push that when you don't have good dialogue. So it was a concern early on because of the juxtaposition between having a realistic moving cat and one that can talk. How jarring is that? Is that something that's gonna feel off?
So what I did was right after the intro, I had the main character, Little Kitty, talk immediately. It gets it out of the way and establishes that this is how it's going to be. Little Kitty talks, other characters talk, and they're going to have personalities. And I think it's worked out really well.
Image: Double Dagger Studio There's an awful lot of cat customization in this game — lots of hats, and lots of cute cat pics ready to go. How did you narrow down the options to the ones that you have settled on and do you have a personal favourite cat hat?
Oh yeah, we kept adding them and adding them because like there's just no end to fun ones! We did have to stop and cut some out.
I have quite a few favourite ones. Of the ones that we've shown, I love the ladybug hat, especially since we added bones to the antenna so that when you move it bounces around. The bunny one is also a favourite. There's a space helmet one which is really cool. I don't want to give too many away yet because there are some really fun ones and, like I said, we've cut some that I'm hoping we can continue to add after the game ships. It's so much fun! I love adding hats to cats.
Is there a hope for additional DLC down the line, then?
I think I've cut too much cool content to not release it later. There was so much stuff that I wanted to do in this game that I just could not fit in. I'm hoping to be able to finish it after we ship and release it as something later on because it's a shame for people to not experience some of the other cool stuff that we did — hats and characters and other neat things.
But this version that we're shipping is the complete game and it's got so much cool stuff in it. I can't wait for people to see it.
For a final question (one that we're sure we know the answer to), was everyone on the team unanimously a cat person, or did you have any rogue dog people there as well?
We do have one dog person on the team and we had to send them more cat videos than normal. But hey, that's how it goes. Can't fault them for that, I guess!
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and flow.
Our thanks to Matt for taking the time to talk to us. Little Kitty, Big City is set to pounce onto Switch in 2024.
