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EP 3. A Player Character: In or Out?

This Tuesday, we held our first internal playtest. I was really worried that it might not be fun. Thankfully, the gameplay was more enjoyable than I’d expected, and the conversations with the Ritty cats felt distinctive… but! We ran into a major hurdle.
This image was translated with AI. Translation errors may occur.
This image was translated with AI. Translation errors may occur.
The controls…! Ritty started as a chat app where you talked face-to-face with a cat, so we were still using a first-person view. But the limitations of combining a portrait mobile game with a first-person view were painfully clear.
The house felt cramped… you couldn’t move around… and the biggest problem of all was the backyard garden.
This image was translated with AI. Translation errors may occur.
The garden is spacious, and you can arrange things freely. But moving around in first person was so awkward that it felt like a missed opportunity… and a real inconvenience. Everyone on the team agreed that the controls were difficult. The problem was deciding what to do instead.
  • Keep the first-person view and find a more convenient way to control it. First person is part of what makes Ritty unique!
  • Couldn’t we just use a god’s-eye view, looking down from above?
  • Let’s add a player character.
We split into these three camps and kept debating for about two whole hours… Here are the points raised in the meeting:
  • “There aren’t any portrait mobile games that let you move around in first person. The only workable alternative is to remove movement entirely.”
  • “A god’s-eye view takes away the feeling of caring for and bonding with Ritty. I’m a god, not a player who exists in this world.”
  • “Adding a human character would take far too much art work! (We’re short on both time and money.)”
It felt like the meeting would never end (and like an argument might break out…), so we wrapped things up by agreeing to put together the simplest possible player character, as quickly as we could, and try it in the game.
This image was translated with AI. Translation errors may occur.
And then… two… days… later… here’s how it turned out… (drumroll) (Developer A even whipped up multiplayer in no time.)
We took a group photo too. Say cheese!
We’re using an existing asset for the character for now, so the design will need another pass. But it worked better than we’d expected, and we all agreed to go ahead with adding a player character.
What do you think of this change to Ritty…? Does it look like a good direction? We’d love to hear your thoughts!
  • Email: hello@sam-meows.com
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