Dodgy Cat is my mobile dodging game: swipe to steer a small cat around the screen and stay away from anything black. Test build 0.6.7 is out for testers today, and it’s the biggest change since testing began. The levels now bring in new things one at a time, the game stops to explain each one the first time you meet it, and the middle levels are a lot gentler.
Almost all of it comes from what testers told me through the in-game feedback button. You can still sign up to test Dodgy Cat on Android while places last.
Levels that teach as you go
In 0.5, a short game only ever showed you about half of the hazards, and a tester told me they had no idea what to do with half the goodies. Now every hazard and goodie belongs to a level, from 1 to 15. Each level brings in its own new ones early in the game, so you’ll have met everything by Level 15 even if your games are short.
The first time something new turns up, the game pauses behind a card that explains it: what a box does, how long a mouse’s shield lasts, why you’d want butterflies. Press Play and you carry on. Each card shows once, then the game stays out of your way.
Because the levels have changed so much, everyone starts again from Level 1 the first time they open this build. Best times, totals and settings are kept.
Gentler in the middle
Testers hit a wall around Level 7 and Level 8, where the missions asked for a mouse that turned up too late, or for a 90-second survival that was out of reach. Survival missions now build from 20 seconds to a minute and a half, goodies a mission needs arrive early, and if you keep failing a level the game quietly eases off a little each time.
Butterflies, bells and catnip
Butterflies used to be a mission target and not much else. Now each one you catch banks a one-second butterfly boost, and your next goodie uses all of it: a longer hide in a box, a longer shield, longer zoomies, or a ball of yarn that stays hot and keeps knocking hazards out of the way.
Two new goodies arrive in the later levels. A bell collar (Level 11) saves your cat once: the next time something catches it, the bell rings and the cat bounces clear. Catnip (Level 13) slows everything black to half speed for a few seconds.
Easier to see what’s keeping you safe
A box used to let the cat out with no warning, often straight into trouble. Now a countdown sits over the cat for every timer it has (box, shield, zoomies), and a bubble goes round a cat in a box, blinking just before it runs out.
Catches are fairer too. The cat could only be caught on its head, so things passed straight through its body. It can now be caught anywhere on the cat, and near misses count from a little further away to match.
Also in this build
- Level up mid-game into a team mission and the extra cats join straight away, staying until it’s done.
- The Shadow Twin hazard is now called the Copy Cat.
- On a Galaxy Z Fold’s inner screen, the game is now the right size and the background fills the screen.
- The version number shows on the start card, so you can tell which build you’re on.
Try it
Dodgy Cat is in testing on Android. Testers already signed up get an email with the new build, and their old one asks them to update. If you’d like to join, sign up on the Dodgy Cat page. If you’re curious how the testing itself works, I wrote about it in Letting people test my games before they’re out.
