March of the Meows

Overview

March of the Meows is a turn-based strategy game with a unique style of combat where players alternate between a highly strategic planning phase, and an action-packed execution phase where both player and enemy characters act in tandem. Play as Sir Meowsalot, the last defender of the village of Meowsville, using tactical information given to maneuver around obstacles and push through enemies across multiple levels. Players rescue felines to bolster their forces as they journey through the world and defeat the nefarious Rat King.

March of the Meows was based on the novel mechanics of having turn-based planning linked to synchronous actions in real-time, built off concepts tested by other titles such as Flamberge and Fights in Tight Spaces. We were hooked on this unique approach to gameplay, and wanted to experiment and push this concept as far as possible to create a strategic experience never had before.

This was a cross-disciplinary capstone project that spanned 6 months. While multiple iterations of the game were prototyped in the Unity engine, the game was eventually ported to a proprietary custom engine streamlined to cater to the game's specific needs. As the design lead, I continually liaised with both design and technical teams to oversee the game development from concept to final product, guiding critical areas such as game pacing, level design, mechanical interactions and balancing. I also doubled as art and audio leads, and was equally involved in defining the game's whimsical art vision and audio direction.

Real-time Turn-Based Strategy

The mechanic that defined the core gameplay of March of the Meows was also its double-edged sword. Throughout early builds, the game often slipped into periods of difficulty imbalance. It was discovered that providing players with definite actions enemies are to undertake in subsequent turns made the game too deterministic and simple. On the other hand, withholding this information made enemies extremely unpredictable and the game became incredibly challenging.

Over many iterations, a healthy compromise was achieved by providing limited information to players on enemy intent through visual telegraphs and audio cues. Although not apparent to us at the start, I soon learnt and championed for the importance of having strong user interface visuals which were vital in conveying game state information to players diegetically, while building on the game rules to give players the full picture of the situation without handholding.

Multi-faceted Production

Given the larger scale of this capstone project, and its integration into a custom engine, many unique challenges surfaced. Many of the features taken for granted in commercial engines were not present and many design requirements which had to be reworked to fit the capabilities of the custom engine. Proposed character abilities that could not be supported by the collision pipeline had to be changed. Since the editor could not support tilemap implementation, game levels had to be crafted and tested externally. This extended to the art and audio disciplines as well. Minute details such as animation framerate requirements and audio clip pitch limits have to be adhered to.

Despite the limitations coming off as a downside initially, it helped strengthen our communication pipelines. Each individual team member would be assigned clear responsibilities, allowing for easy direct communication when problems arise, all while documentation was rigorously maintained and scrums were held weekly to get everyone on the same page efficiently. By the end of the project, we were so innately familiar with what each other were doing, we found ourselves anticipating problems and crafting solutions multiple steps ahead of each other to resolve problems before they even arise.