Claire D Foster

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© Claire D Foster 2016www.clairedfoster.com

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Your cyborg cat Meuwn is out of control... And only you can stop her!

Run, jump, climb, and swim your way through vast caverns, dense jungle, and the deep sea to shut down Meuwn’s power plants before she steals all the Earth’s lava!

The fate of the world, and your cat, is in your hands...

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A comic? Sure, why not?

Cyborg Cats on the Moon: Meuwn’s Madness began in the spring of 2015, though the seeds of the story formed years earlier. The main character, Meuwn, is based off a cat I owned named Dax. Dax was sweet, sensitive, lovable, and totally unpredictable; she could be asleep or quietly purring on my lap one second, and in a flash would be sprinting around the house chirping like a maniac. Her quirkiness and personality inspired my then-husband and I to make up stories about a cat named Princess Meuwn, the self-proclaimed Ruler of the Moon. Meuwn was absolutely crazy, living on the Moon with her subjects and getting into various adventures with her Big Friend from the Dark Side of the Moon. Her notable features were an explosive personality and a penchant for wearing a

Creating the Comic

hat made of star string and moon cheese. The more stories we came up with, themore characters we developed and Meuwn’s world started to have a life of its own. Professor Moongoggles was an eccentric old scientist, who popped up occasionally with his helpers Eddie Spaghetti and Boogersleeves. These stories were absurd, short and just for fun, and we usually forgot most of the details the next day, but they stayed in the back of my mind as something worth making real.

The theme of my first year at MICA was experimentation, trying every new technique I could and learning everything from animation to bookbinding. In the spring of 2015 for my independent project, I decided to make a comic about Meuwn and Professor Moongoggles, and Cyborg Cats on the Moon, Vol. 1 was born.

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I can’t say exactly when the story that became the comic took shape. At some point however, I made Professor Moongoggles a female cybernetics researcher and Meuwn her cyborg cat. Once I knew this, I needed to explain how Meuwn became a cyborg, and then the details gradually fell into place.

I envisioned the comic as being the beginning of a series of short comics. I decided to set up a major conflict and give some backstory into the characters before ending with a cliffhanger, anticipating the next part to come.

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Meuwn spends most of her time inventing. Usually her creations are cat toys and she thinks of each one as her greatest masterpiece.

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On this page, I wanted to get a sense of her lab. It’s obviously cluttered with odd bits of electronics and pieces of robots, but where is it? How did she get there? These are questions I wanted to start with and answer as the comic progresses.

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The first iteration of Professor Moongoggles, Eddie Spaghetti, and Boogersleeves. I knew from the beginning that I wanted Moongoggles to be a young, female scientist, known for always wearing her signature goggles. Surprisingly, her character has not changed much since these early stages of development.

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I have developed reasons as to how and why Moongoggles was able to set up a lab on the moon. This must be in the future, but why does it looks relatively barren? Wouldn’t there be many more facilities, colonies, or other reseach stations? These are details for another comic!

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This page is crucial in a number of ways. One, we learn why Moongoggles was forced to create her lab on the Moon. Two, we also get a sense that she might be just as unpredictable as her cat.

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Through the development stages of Meuwn and Moongoggles, I conceptualized them as being essentially mirrors of each other. Meuwn, after all, was created by Moongoggles and they share many personality traits.

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This page seemed to come naturally and quickly for me when I was creating the comic. I loved the pattern the meuwnions created and wanted to give a sense that maybe Meuwn is getting out of control. This first drawing of the meuwnion also inspired the style and form of the later meuwions I created for the game.

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I thought it would be funny if Eddie’s head is actually some sort of Pez dispenser. The idea was almost an accident really, one that probably came to me as I was working one of many late nights, but I liked it because it tells us that Eddie isn’t human like we thought, but has his own secrets and backstory to tell. Where is he from? Is he another of Moongoggle’s experiments?

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These next four pages were probably the most fun for me. I loved the idea that Moongoggles would try to stop Meuwn by sneaking into her lab. Seeing her computer with unsaved work, she thinks about clicking on the “discard” button - as if Meuwn had no back-up in place and this would really stop her!

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Since I had never tried sequential art before, I used this as an opportunity to play with style and format. Essentially every page has a different layout, and while it works as a whole, I would like to go back and rework areas.

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Before I started, I knew that the story would be too long to tell in my 20 page comic alone, so I chose to leave the ending open and unknown. At the time, I had a rough idea of how the story might resolve, but it was far from decided.

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A video game? Seriously?!? What was I thinking?

Over the course of the following summer, I played around with different ways I could make Cyborg Cats on the Moon into my thesis. I’ve always loved games of all sorts and initially thought of creating a tabletop game. I felt confident that I could create all the elements needed, such as a game board, pieces, cards, and more, by myself. A video game seemed far beyond my reach

until I talked with my brother, Rob Hendry. Rob is a software engineer and was totally capable of programming a game if I could only make everything else. So we decided to go for it!

Over the course of two months, I spent a lot of time and energy planning, researching, and developing my thoughts on making our game. What kind of game did I want to make? What would it look like? How do we make a game in the first place? These

Cyborg Cats on the Moon: the video game!

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are a few of the questions I asked myself.We decided to create a 2D platformer. These games are characterized by running, jumping, swimming, climbing, (or other physical movement) through an environment in a linear or semi-open world fashion. They are usually divided into distinct levels, and feature challenges that test a player’s memory, hand-eye coordination, creativity, and puzzle solving ability to traverse a variety of landscapes to reach a goal.

From Mario Bros to Metroid, many classic games of the 80’s and 90’s featured a variety of approaches to platforming. Mario Bros for instance, is created in a linear style, where the player moves in a single direction across a level. Challenges are introduced at the beginning of each level, and evolve from a single principle over the course of the level. Metroid on the other hand, is more of an open-world platformer, where the player is allowed to explore a large area, going back and forth between new areas and old ones as the player develops their skill and receives new items and abilities. Challenges do evolve, but are more ability and item specific. However, there is still a goal that the player works toward, essentially going from point A on the map to point B.

We decided that Meuwn’s Madness would be a combination of these approaches, but lean more toward the Metroid-like open world platformer. The game would be divided into four main areas, and each area would have a distinct start and end point, but the player would have the freedom to go back and forth within an area and between areas at will.

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Meuwn’s Madness: the story

Meuwn’s lab on the moon has run out of power and life support systems are at a critical level. Professor Moongoggles, monitoring Meuwn remotely from Earth, is alerted to the dire situation on the moon when alarms begin going off. Through the monitor, Moongoggles sees blueprints, images, and coordinates of a volcanic island before the transmission cuts out. She looks up the coordinates and locates the island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Knowing Meuwn, Moongoggles gets a sinking feeling about the island and decides to investigate.

When she gets there, she sets up a base camp on the beach. Eddie, who remained at the lab and is working remotely, has analyzed the blueprints and determined that Meuwn has set up three small power

plants on and around the island and one large generator directly on the volcano. The other power plants are located deep in an underground cave system, along underwater lava vents off shore, and at the top of the dense, towering jungle surrounding the volcano.

As the game progresses, Moongoggles learns that Meuwn has secretly set up these power plants for one purpose: to charge an enormous transport beam to steal all the Earth’s lava. It is now a race against time as Moongoggles must shut down each of the power plants and the main transporter beam before it’s too late!

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Moongoggles

Stand

Active Stand

Walk

Run

Run 30

Skid

Turn

Jump

Double Jump

Fall

Slide 30

Slide 45

Slide 90

Wall Ledge Climb

Wall Slide

Wall Jump

Ledge Hang and Climb

Crawl

Rope Swing

Rope Climb

Rope Hor. Climb

Ladder Climb

Fix/Activate

Swim

Float

Meuwn

Stand

Active Stand

Walk

Stand

Hang

Stand

Float

Stationary

Float

Run

Skid

Turn

Walk

Fly

Pounce

Fall

Hiss/Laugh

Run

Swipe Attack

Wall Grab

Wall Jump

Jump

Double Jump

Activate

Jump

Run

Swipe Attack

Swim

Tongue Attack

Swim

Puff

Jump Oil Attack

OG Meuwnion

Bat Meuwnion

Frog Meuwnion

Octopus Meuwnion

Trap Meuwnion

Puffer Meuwnion

Lab Cave Jungle

Moon Transport/Respawn

Organizing such a large project took a lot of time and energy, but the planning was well worth it. I made a checklist of all the features I wanted included in the game and thesis exhibition.

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Perch

Climb

Swim

Fly

Jump

Attack

Attack

Attack

Bird Meuwnion

Lemur Meuwnion

Angler Meuwnion

Stand

1

6

Neutral

Talk

2

Walk

3

Run

4

Jump

5

7

Laugh

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Angry

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Hiss

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Jungle Bob

Meuwn’s Transmissions

Meuwn’s Facial Expressions

Poster

Promo

Music

Trailer

Comic

Cut Scenes

Intro Screen

Title Screen

Menu Screen

Dry Hen Logo

Intro Animation

GreenlightSubmission

Game Manual

Dry Hen Animation

Sound FX

Other Tasks

General Assets/Other

CAT

Spikes

Machine Parts

Jungle Bob’sHouse

C h a r a c t e r Sheets

This checklist is not exhaustive, there are more features and assets that I plan to create for the final game. However, this allowed to me visualize all the different components that would go into this project; breaking them up into smaller chunks and making them more manageable.

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Caves

Jungle

bg mg fg bg mg fg bg mg fg bg mg fg bg mg fg




Stationary Platfom

Crumbling Platform

Falling Platform

Moving Platform

Spikes

Machine Steam

Steam

Lava

Crystals

Fish

Bat

Snake

Insects

Drips

Salamander

Foliage

Vines

Spitting Plant

Pitcher Plant

Bird

Monkey

Jaquar

Fungus

Fruit

Stationary Platfom

Crumbling Platform

Falling Platform

Moving Platform

Spikes

Machine Steam

Fly Trap

1 2 3 4 5

109876

1 2 3 4 5

109876

Underwater

Moon





Stationary Platfom

Crumbling Platform

Falling Platform

Moving Platform

Spikes

Machine Steam

Spikes

Machine Steam

Meteorites

Fish

Porpoise

Coral

Octopus

Eel

Tube Worms

Bubbles

Lava

Clam

Urchin

1 2 3 4 5

109876

1 2 3 4 5

109876

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Characters

Professor Moongoggles

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In Meuwn’s Madness, the player controls Moongoggles as she travels around the island shutting down Meuwn’s power plants. I like games with strong female characters and wanted to create a character that I would enjoy playing. Moongoggles is smart, tough, and athletic. She shows up to the island ready for anything, and takes on all the challenges thrown at her.

Creating the character design for Moongoggles began with the simple premise that she is in her early 30’s, she’s tough and athletic, and she always wears her goggles. Her design evolved from the comic version, but was established very early in the development of the game. This was in part because it was necessary to get her motion frames down as soon as possible, so we could lay the groundwork for the physics of the game. One limitation we had to keep in mind for the game version of Moongoggles is that the character needed to occupy a much more

square area of space, or we would risk her looking too stretched out. This meant that her head was enlarged and her body was made more squat than the comic version.

Next pages: Excerpt of the sprite sheets for Moongoggles. Each movment was broken down into hand-drawn frames and then animated in-game.

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Meuwn and her Meuwnions

Meuwn’s character design was established in the comic. I loved her big head and half cyborg body, and essentially didn’t change her as the game progressed. I wanted her to be both cute and a little menacing at the same time - a character to keep you guessing as to what she’s thinking and how she’s going to act.

As the player travels through the game, Meuwn catches on to your prescence on the island. She begins communicating with Moongoggles through monitors she’s set up at various locations. On the opposite page are some of Meuwn’s key facial expressions during the transmissions.

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When Meuwn becomes aware of Moongoggles on the island, she sends her meuwnions to stop her. The meuwnions are robotic automatons, taking the forms of various animals, with a cat-like twist. They are also designed specifically for each area. For example, the bat meuwnion is found in the caves while the octopus meuwnion is found underwater.

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Opposite page: Octopussy and original meuwnion. Clockwise from top: Bat cat meuwnion, pufferfish meuwnion, frog cat meuwnion, and cattrap meuwion. Following spread: Bat cat flight sequence, frog cat jump sequence.

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Early on in the development of Meuwn’s Madness, I decided that the game would take place in three distinct areas on the island in addition to the moon. Having a variety of areas would not only make the game more interesting, but also allow us greater freedom in designing the platforming challenges. Each area would require the player to interact with the environment in slightly different ways, whether it was utilizing a wall grab-jump sequence in the caves, to sliding down vines in the jungle, to swimming through the underwater vents. In classic platforming fashion, abilities would be acquired gradually, as the player mastered the areas and collected items.

In developing all of the areas in the game, it was important to me to root them in reality. The environments, though fictional and exaggerated, needed to feel believable and real. The lighting would also be extremely important in establishing the mood and overall feel of the game. We decided to take a dynamic approach to lighting. For instance, at times in the caves, the only light source will be from Moongoggles’ headlamp, or in the jungle, the forest floor and understory will be very dark, with the level getting gradually lighter as Moongoggles climbs the canopy. These simple effects will make each area feel real, and not simply static backgrounds.

EnvironmentsAn early concept drawing for the caves. I liked the texture and feeling the linework gave to the rocks and didn’t end up changing them too drastically over the course of development.

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I wanted the color palette for the caves to be very earthy reds and browns. Lava flows punctuate the caverns, lending a reddish-orange glow to everything. Acidic water drips from stalactites, and high pressure steam vents erupt without warning.

The caves were the first area I conceptualized. The environment was heavily inspired by the dripping, flowing, and rippled formations found in the Luray Caverns of Virginia. I also researched lava flows and caves produced from volcanic islands, such as Hawai’i.

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Some early concept sketches for the caves. The caverns are dark and dangerous, and Moongoggles must make her way to their depths in order to find the power plant Meuwn and her meuwions have set up.

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When I started drawing the caves, I approached it by drawing large areas of rock formations that could then be stitched together to create the entire level. One key aspect of the game is that the environments look hand-drawn and original; I didn’t want to rely on tiling squares of rocks to create areas that feel repeated. Instead, I wanted each part to feel new, as if Moongoggles were exploring a real environment.

However, after drawing several large rock areas, we realized that it would be impossible to create interesting platforming with such static sets; we needed to have an idea of the area, but the flexibility to move small sections around. I broke up the large sets into much smaller pieces, which we were able to use freely. Even with a limited number of assets, we were able to achieve a high degree of variation by the ayering and placement of the rock segments.

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Stills from Meuwn’s Madness Official Trailer. These are examples of what gameplay will look like for the finished game. The caves are at times narrow and winding, at others, vast and open.

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Cave assets.

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The jungle area came next and was conceptualized as being vertical and vast. It had been a long time since the volcano was active, and the soil, rich from volcanic minerals, supported trees growing to enormous heights. I was inspired in the design of the trees by the strangler figs of Australia and south-east Asia. The figs don’t grow from the ground up, but germinate in the canopy of other trees and send shoots down the host tree.

Eventually, the figs’ shoots encircle the tree, slowing encasing it, causing it to die. The resulting fig is hollow, with the outside a network of the fused shoots.

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Concept drawing of the jungle area. The trees are vast, covered in moss and epiphytes. The majority of platforming in the jungle area would be on platforms in front of the trees, with Moongoggles occasionally running along braches or swinging on vines.

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Previous pages, above: Jungle assets.

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The jungle is full of vibrant colors and strange plants. It is a dangerous place, home to numerous creatures and carnivorous plants. Jaquars and large rodents roam the forest floor, living in the dense shadows of the trunks. Monkeys and birds dominate the upper reaches. Vines hang off of the enormous branches, and everything is covered with epiphytes and moss. The surfaces are slick from frequent rain, making grips treacherous.

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Stills from the official trailer showing examples of jungle gameplay.

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Where the caves are about maze-like passages opening into huge caverns, the jungle is about verticality and climbing up to the immense canopy high above the forest floor. The underwater area is also different, and is about combining the vastness of the open ocean and the spires and chasms of underwater volcanic vents.

This early drawing depicts some features of the underwater area. The colors are rich blues and greys, contrasted with the bright orange and yellows of the lava.

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Previous pages: underwater rock assets. This page and opposite: Water assets, including a giant clam, urchin, bubble stream, and various corals. Following pages: Concept sketch for octopus meuwnion encounter.

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The open ocean is far from empty, containing multitudes of fish, with the occasional whale and turtle passing through. On the island’s underwater sides, corals thrive. Lava spews from frequent fissures in the rocks, creating dangerous pockets of super-heated water. Deeper, darkness takes over and strange creatures like tube worms live in the warm and mineral rich waters, threatening to ensnare Moongoggles if she gets too close.

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Stills from the official trailer. Watch it at www.dryhenstudio.com.

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After traversing the island and destroying all Meuwn’s power plants in the caves, jungle, and ocean, Moongoggles must travel to the moon to face off with Meuwn and stop her once and for all. The moon is a bleak landscape, with deep craters, low gravity, and the constant threat of incoming comets and meteorites.

Since the plan was for the moon to be excluded from the demo from the beginning, it was the least developed area over the course of the year. The scenes on the following pages were created for the trailer to show a sense of the moon’s landscape, both huge and barren.

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Related to Meuwn’s machines, but of Moongoggles’ design are the Coordinate-Activated Transports, or CATS. These are respawn points for Moongoggles when she gets in trouble. One aspect of the game I wanted to feature was a continual gameplay approach. This means that there are no distinct save-points. Instead, as Moongoggles travels through the environment, Eddie uses her coordinates to place the CATS near her. Whenever she passes a CAT, it becomes activated so that if she encounters an enemy or hazard, before being hurt she will immediately transport back to it.

This kind of gameplay allows the player to experiment with the platforming challenges, taking risks more frequently since there is little fear of losing large amounts of progress. Placed in the correct locations, the CATS will create sequences of challenges that require careful and accurate platforming, but also encourage the player to play quickly, creatively, and reflexively. It also means that the player will have to travel through areas completely to reach any point, instead of having discreet level beginnings and ends. As the levels are developed, we may implement a fast travel feature or something similar to avoid too much repetition in having to go back and forth over an area, which could become tiring and cause the player to lose interest.

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Meuwn’s power plants are massive tangles of pipes, vents, turbines, and wheels. I wanted them to stand out from the environment as not only machine and therefore foreign, but with wacky and garish colors as a visual indicator of Meuwn’s mental state. She’s a crazy cat after all!

Above and the tfollowing page: Creating lots of little machine pieces allowed us to assemble them into virtually infinite variations.

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Stills from the intro animation sequence of Meuwn’s Madness.

Ya gotta have stuff!

In addition to building the demo, one of my goals for the year was to create a package of supplemental material, such as animation sequences, a trailer, posters, a logo and branding images, and a studio name and logo to use as marketing for the project.

The animation sequences are primarily for the opening of the game. Its purpose is to briefly explain the context of the story, and why Moongoggles is on the island. It begins with Moongoggles on a boat at night. The island rises as she approaches, with the camera then panning up to a full moon overlaid with the image of Meuwn and the title. It establishes quickly and clearly for someone not familiar with the premise of the game that there are two main characters, a woman wearing goggles, and a crazy cyborg cat, and it has something to do with an island and the moon.

Supplemental Materials

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Stills from the trailer. The trailer’s purpose is twofold, to introduce Meuwn as the main antagonist and to show examples of gameplay.

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The posters were an important part of the supplemental materials. They can be used as merchandise and for marketing, offering a collectible illustration of the game. I was inspired by the cover art of 80’s and 90’s games, which usually featured the main character facing off across the whole host of bad guys in an intense scene. Not constrained to the simplifyed 8 or 16-bit graphics of the games, the covers were an opportunity to show the character and environments in a highly rendered, more realistic way. I wanted these posters to explode with energy and action, and showcase each area and its distinctive characters and features.

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It’s Show Time!

The thesis show. The chance to show off a year’s work!

I had several goals in mind when designing my thesis show. One, people should enter a space that felt as if it were out of the game. It needed to be continuous with the game’s environments and create the right atmosphere. Second, viewers would have multiple options for interaction. I decided to offer the game in different formats in addition to the playable demo, including print (the posters), video (the trailer), and interactive reading (the comic and art of the game on Ipads). I wanted people to feel comfortable to explore, so that if someone was not interested in playing the demo, they might still find the trailer or posters engaging. Third, to offer tangible take-aways to promote the product.

The playable demo was the most important part of my show, and really the entire year. In reality, it was extremely ambitious to develop a playable demo in only eight months, but it was very important to me to try. No matter how much art or development I did, I felt the thesis project would only be successful if we could actually realize the game, if only in a small and curated way.

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Thesis installation at the MICA Grad Show 2016.I received overwhelmingly positive feedback about both the demo and the entire exhibition. People responded very well to the variety of media, and I observed even people who did not identify as gamers taking a turn at the demo.

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While there are some things I would have liked to add to the entire experience (namely more stuff), I was very pleased with how it came out, and believed it was successful in creating an interesting and engaging platform to experience the game.

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Even though I did this project as a student, from early on I was determined to make Cyborg Cats on the Moon: Meuwn’s Madness a reality beyond school. To take the next step in bringing our game to market, Rob and I decided to form Dry Hen Studio. The name comes from a play on our family name, Hendry.

We created a website, www.dryhenstudio.com, with plans to merchandise to support development. Goals for development in the next year include a submission to Steam Greenlight, a crowdfunding campaign, and an appearance at the Music and Gaming Festival in National Harbor, DC.

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Many thanks to all who helped and supported me through this year, especially Rob, Kim, and Rhea.I couldn’t have done it without you!

Special thanks to Whitney Sherman and the entire Graduate Studies staff for their support and hard work!

Claire D Foster

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Transcript of Claire D Foster