Cat Quest 3 marries quick bursts of family-friendly fun with the epic progression of a proper RPG. It’s also the third installment in a series that keeps pulling the same trick, game after game. We had the opportunity to ask developer Gentlebros about their latest release and the road that took them here.
Small Kitty, Big Quest
Developers at Gentlebros knew their tiny A-RPG epic was going to reach the pirate-themed Purribean Sea for a long time. As CEO, artist, and developer Desmond Wong told me, “the choice of going with a pirate theme was decided as early as the original Cat Quest.” He pointed out that the first mention of the pi-rats, the main enemy faction of the third game, dates back to the first Cat Quest.
Major decisions, like where to set each following installment, had been planned years before being implemented. The series’ debut dates back to 2017, a whole seven years ago. Considering how open the finale of Cat Quest 3 is, I wouldn’t be surprised if the studio shows similar foresight for another sequel.
Not every series manages to set up its own sequels so far in advance, but the Purribean Sea and pi-rats are only the tip of the iceberg. Most important is perhaps how the series grew with its audience. Cat Quest 3 still values its broad-appeal family-friendly aesthetic, which Wong told me takes broad inspiration from Nintendo and Disney, but this last installment features more mature themes than its predecessors.
“We do acknowledge that the younger fans that played the first Cat Quest are all older now, and we’ve begun incorporating slightly more serious themes into our games. All in all, we hope to grow the series along with our fans!”
An Epic Story, One Step at a Time
To keep a series running for such a long time would be a success for any studio, especially one with such humble origins as Gentlebros. That they managed to achieve this with a trilogy of games that almost entirely forgoes the long quest chains typical of the genre is nothing short of a miracle. “The pace of progression in Cat Quest games are purposefully fast and snappy,” says Wong, adding that “the challenge with this is coming up with enough novel and original ideas to span the length of a full RPG game.”
But reaching a happy medium between RPG mechanics and the snappiness of simpler games was not easy: “To achieve this, we fine-tuned everything from how much experience is needed to level up, to how quickly players can complete quests. This is why most activities in a Cat Quest game are short, because we want players to constantly feel like they’re achieving something.” Always feeling like they’re advancing, but not too much, as he later adds: “It’s also difficult to make sure that players aren’t overwhelmed with too many activities to do!”
A Deep but Simple RPG
The studio found a similar challenge when adapting the customization every player expects in an action-RPG to the simpler mechanics. How do you allow for customizable play styles with no manual level-up, no crafting, and no skill tree? For Wong, the solution was to focus on the basic, by “keeping what the player can do consistent (attack, dodge and swap weapons) and instead augmenting or changing the entire move set depending on the equipment being used.”
There might only be three types of melee weapons in the game, but their moveset is completely unique, and many pieces of equipment modify the game in their own way. The other trick seems to be to allow for interesting combinations. On this, Wong adds that “Every gear can be combined with others to create even more effects. Thus, without complicating what players can do, we’ve managed to allow players to mix and match items to create something consistently surprising.”
To expand on this point, an example of a surprising equipment combination is the Golden set, which includes armor, helmet, and shield. They don’t come with any massive stat increase or crazy effects, but together they form something unique. The armor increases each coin’s value by 20%, the shield generates coins when blocking, and the helmet increases damage based on how many coins you have. The first two make you rich, while the last deals buffs your attacks based on your riches. It’s a small thing, but it makes experimenting with equipment much more fun than it has any right to be.
Finding Balance
After this short interview I started seeing how every great decision in Cat Quest 3 was the result of striking the right balance between conflicting interests. Simple but deep RPGs are obviously built by balancing the two sides, but the same is true of the short activities that compose this full-length game, or the kid-friendly tone that still has to appeal to long-time fans.
As it turns out, even the game’s signature cat puns are the result of a delicate balance. As Wong puts it, “Sometimes we do go too far with the puns, which is why we have an editor in the company to keep this in check. That being said, we sometimes get called out by fans for missing an opportunity for a pun here and there, so it’s a tight balance to walk!”
Cat Quest 3 is out now. Check out our review for our full thoughts.
Published: Aug 8, 2024 11:39 am