CATEAU
The award-winning game Cateau is a visually, musically, and narratively beautiful experience. Enter the enchantingly atmospheric streets of Paris, getting to know truly distinct characters while every choice you make, whether big or small, carries weight and consequence in this little adventure.
Set in Paris, Cateau is a visual novel that takes the idea of friendship and investigates it through a particular lens – what it might take to actually be a friend in more than concept alone. As the protagonist, you come to understand that your friend and roommate Roselle is unwell. You take it upon yourself to try and rekindle that spark of life that seems to have gone out by engaging in one of her former interests, cats. While sauntering up and down the cozy streets of the City of Lights, whether it be to get to work, run errands, or simply enjoy the town, you will come to encounter three distinctly different cats. Their personalities being fundamentally unlike one another, it's up to you to enter unfamiliar waters, figuring them out as you attempt to bring your friend back. The multiple, varied endings give each choice, big or small, tangible consequence.
It was made by a team of 15 talented game developers under a period of 10 weeks. It has been awarded with Best Execution in Narrative and nominated for Best Execution in Art at the Sweden Game Awards 2018 and nominated for the Skövde Academic Game Awards 2018.
"A great narrative makes us want to see what comes next, and this game keeps you immersed. You belong in a small context, but it makes you want to see more, and we’re excited to see where this game can go. It’s adorable, it’s charming, it’s beautiful."
Swedish Game Awards Gala 2018 citation for Best Execution in Narrative
MY CONTRIBUTION
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Agile project planning using the SCRUM-method with weekly follow-ups.
Establish a communication and feedback structure for the project members.
Setting up project goals and synchronization between disciplines.
GAME DESIGN
Optimizing design document for intended scope.
Design a branching story system that does not exceed the project's scope.
Specify needed tools and systems to make game implementation easier.
USER EXPERIENCE
Define the game's essence and desired user experience.
Find its niche within the market.
Applied user testing to validate the game's user experience and cognitive ease of use.
EDITORIAL WORK
Specified and implemented textual effects and reactions of the cats to give the game a more sense of life.
Ensured that the written text uphold its intended quality.
ROLE
Project Manager & Lead Game Designer
As a project manager I've felt the importance of establishing a good communication structure and a solid workload that will not impair my teammates, but enough to keep them alert. It has also been my sole responsibility to handle any conflicts within the team and come up with solutions that works best for any conflicting parties.
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As a game designer my biggest mission have been creating a consensus within the team of what the game should be. This has included creating a "word to live by" and making sure that each individual has been on the same page concerning the theme by specification and communication.
CHALLENGES
Essence of the game
One of my biggest challenges as a project manager in this project was to maintain a good communication structure, where I have tried to involve everyone in healthy discussions.
As a designer the main challenge was to try to find the essence of what a visual novel is and how this game can have its own niche. It required a lot of research and playtesting, but we got there eventually. Another challenge has been to be able to produce a qualitative and concise experience for the scope we had.
DESIGN PHILOSOPHY
Quality over quantity
This game's design philosophy has focused on giving the players a concise qualitative experience that lasts for about an hour. I wanted a beginning and an end, and the content that comes in-between can be adjusted depending on scope.
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It was very important that every choice was thought-through, so that the player doesn't feel like it didn't matter in the end. Also, I wanted the characters to be fleshed out to the level that they feel different from each other. This isn't only to create variety and so that players can get an emotional bond to them, but also so that the choices make sense. This is so that an attentive player can start to understand which choices are the best for a particular cat when they've gotten to know them better. The affection system represents this as well, with lower rewards and penalties for the choices in the first meeting than the last.
SCOPE
Complete experience in 10 weeks
One of the biggest challenges has been the race against the clock. This has required careful planning to be able to make the deadline. My mission has been to evaluate the capabilities of each team member and provide a plan that adheres to their strengths and weaknesses. This combined with follow-ups on an individual level and having evaluations of their well-being, has made sure that the workload has been as optimized as possible.
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As a designer this has had some implications as well. To be able to produce qualitative content with a branching narrative in a short period of time, much of the thought-out systems needed to be concise and easily implemented. My job has thus included designing a branching story-system that expands and retracts during each date, basically meaning that the starting and ending point is usually the same. This is then combined with an affection system that will decide what happens toward the end and branch out accordingly. Tools and other base systems have also been specified to decrease implementation time for gameplay as well.
THE EXPERIENCE
Cozy and wholesome
One of the first things that needed to be decided was what kind of experience the game should provide. To be able to create a consensus between the team members, I decided to let everyone write down a word that describe the experience they believe the game should provide. Then I eliminated similar answers and put the rest in a pool. This pool was then described with one word. In our case that was "feel-good". I believe that this was an important step, as now everyone knew what they needed to focus on when creating assets for the game. This also let me focus on how the audio-visual aspects needed to be portrayed as well as the written text. Some of the aspects include rounder shapes, a warmer color scheme and audio that enhances reading instead of distracting. Through user testing I could later confirm what did work and what did not.