Its been a long time coming but Shooty and the Catfish: Episode 1 is finally release and damn it feels good.

You can check out the launch trailer right here!


Or if you are feeling really bold you can download and play the game from itch.io here: https://visitorsfromdreams.itch.io/shootycatfish-episode1

So where from here?

Well, Episode 2 has already had all of its dungeon and encounters completed so it that really needs to be done is the intro town and a flashback series that will start off the episode and help fill out Shooty and Zaats relationship a bit more, something I want to focus more on now the first episode has established the games tone and mechanics.

Before I can get to wrapping up Episode 2 however I have some freelance and animation commitments I need to get out of the way. Rest assured I will be setting up a game page for it in the coming weeks.

In the mean time, thank you for everyones support during episode 1s production, it means the world to me. Happy shooting!

- Daniel

Hello everyone!

I know it has been a while since I have posted an update, this was largely due to freelance work being my number, but here I am sharing progress for Shooty and the Catfish.

Before I get into the progress update however, I want to thank everyone who has followed me since the interview I did for @rpgmgames​ went live. I cant believe how many people liked the look of my game enough to follow me!

So, onto progress!






Well first of all, for those who missed it in the interview, Shooty and the Catfish will now be released accross 5 episodes as opposed to all being within one self contained game. This is largely due to some format changes as the games linear progression and narrative werent working together as well as I would have liked. My solution to this was to break the game up into a series of standalone experiences. This change has allowed me to make some changes that I think are beneficial to the game as an overall product.

These changes are made up of these additions.

- A town has been added to each episode, allowing for a large increase in NPC interaction and exploration.

- Zaat (Catfish) is now a party member.

- A tighter and focused narrative.

There are however some elements that no longer make sense in this new episodic format, such as experience points and levelling. I am hoping to implement a system that puts a heavier emphasis on adventure game elements and gear for combat.

NOW, for the important stuff, Episode 1, when is it coming and whats been added? Well, this is all good news.

I am aiming to have the first episode released in January, and its made up of areas not found in the demo (infact none of the content from the demo will show up until the final episode) so this will feel fresh to anyone who took the time to play through the original release. In episode 1 you will be visiting a town known as Grit (as seen above) where you will be interacting with a large number of NPCs (also seen above). This town is connected to the Mushroom Mines that were posted many months ago. At this point all that is left for episode 1 is to have the NPC interactions added in, the combat rebalanced to accomodate having Zaat in your party (and her combat animations need to be created) and finally the narrative elements need to be added in.

Thats it for this update, but I do have another new feature/area I will be talking about in a future blog post as well as the narrative changes that have been made since the demo’s release.

Thank you as always for support thing Shooty and the Catfish project!

- Daniel

Hello everyone and sorry for the long break between posts, unfortunately that might be a little more common for the next couple of months as I have quite a lot of freelance going on at the moment.



That doesnt mean I haven’t been busy, infact outside of the narrative (a new notch on the progress image down below) the third dungeon (Tall Tall Tower) is now complete which is pretty exciting. Its one of the larger dungeons in the game, though not overly complex, especially compared to the second dungeon in the game. Its full of sad ghosts… sad business ghosts…



Next up is Sausage Shrine, the shortest and most direct of the games areas. Just because its short doesnt mean I wont be trying to cram as much content as possible into it however.



I also recieved the last of the tracks from my composer this morning which was awesome. I do have 5 other tracks in the game (for 5 optional bosses) which are being composed by someone else and will tie more into the games Gameboy visuals, but I will talk more about that once I have more details and everything is official with the artist.



Going forward I will be sharing less screens so as to avoid giving less away, but I will try to be more selective about what I end up sharing, keep things interesting.



Until next time when I get to post about sausages and other cured meats, be good to each other and have a good one!

Oh my god I actually did it!

Apologies for this blog being so quiet for so long. I was away for several weeks (got engaged during that time, very exciting!) and then was hit with a surprise move which has left me with very limited interenet access for the time being.

Now, as for news. Well, as you can see from the image below (and the ones of dungeon exteriors further below, I will keep the dungeon insides under wraps, give people something to explore ha ha) I have finished mapping all of the games environments, in full color not less. This is a huge achievement and has taken longer than I ever expected. Some areas have been dropped (they will be used in another project) so that I can get this game released this year, but overall I am incredibly happy with how things have come together.

Some of you may be asking why the move to color, but in the end it mainly came down to reability. A lot of the games environments ended up looking very similar, I also had people not recognizing doors in play testing. Due to this the decision to make the game full color (or Gameboy Color HA HA HA…) was made. If there is a demand for it I might look into selling a monochrome version of the title at a lower cost when it launches, giving people the option between the authentic gameboy experience and the DX experience.

I also have decided that the game will NOT be encrypted, anybody who wants to tear the game apart and make there own adventures is more than welcome. Fan games are a big part of what makes the RPG Maker scene unique to me and its something I want to encourage with my projects whole heartedly.



So where too from here?

Well, next up as you can see in the above image is Dungeon Design, which in the case of this particular game means adding in locked doors and keys as well as any other puzzles. I dont image this will take longer than a couple of weeks depending on how work goes BUT now that I am back I will keep you all up to date and informed.

As of next week I will also start posting “Screenshot Saturday” images while trying to keep my main updates for the mid week.

Once again, from the bottom of my heart, thank you to all of those who have followed this project, it really means the world to me. If anyone has any asks please feel free to send them through!

Until next time, peace out everybody! <3

It has been a huge week and I have been nowhere near as productive as I would like. It feels awful…

Most of my free time this week was actually spent watching a miniseries from 1980 with my family about Australian crime hero Ned Kelly called “The Last Outlaw”. Well worth checking out if you are into period dramas (and the work of George Miller since he directed 2 episodes). Why am I talking about it? Well partly as an excuse but also because Shooty and the Catfish wouldn’t be a real game set in Australia if I didn’t have a reference to him somewhere, and by golly there will be.

That doesn’t mean nothing was acheived, I did manage to get the games second dungeon mapped out which means I am now past where I was in the demo in terms of mapped areas which is super exciting! The second dungeon is actually only half the size of the games first dungeon. To some people that might seem odd, but I like the way Shadow of the Colossus keeps you on your toes about the size of its Colossus and its something I like the idea of replicating here with my dungeon designs.

I am also thinking about making the game more linear than I was first planning, but thats a topic for another blog me thinks.



Now I can talk about this weeks set of level designs, its for an area called Cambelltown Towers, or Area 3. This particular are is a little more varied than the previous 2. The first zone in the area takes place in a series of office cubicles in a long defunct office building. As you can see in the level design layouts its a very modular zone with a lot of individual rooms to explore. Some will of course house treasure, others battles. Being a modular area in terms of design I thought it would be a good zone to experiment with a good old fashioned key hunt in mind. Thats not a mechanic I am overly fond of generally speaking, but I think having one zone in the game based around the idea should be okay as long as I dont overdo it.



The areas second zone has you travelling outside of the building and venturing from the top of one sky scraped to the next while having to traverse a swamp of the decomposed bodies of all the business people who commited suicide during a great calamity (probably related to the stock market) in the middle. So many jumped the bodies formed what is practically a lake. It probably smells really good down there I imagine.



What awaits at the end of the third and shortest zone? I don’t actually know yet aside from a boss fight. Probably something business related.



Thats it for this week, I will have a new screenshot to share tomorrow for Screenshot Saturday. My work schedule has also changed going from 3 days a week to 4 days a week which has also had an impact on how much I can work on the game as well as when I can blog about it, but rest assured, I will soldier on!

Until next week! ~ <3