Ukrainian Level Designer Eduard Pizhuk is working on the game Catfall, about a lonely cat astronaut who managed to survive a spaceship crash.
dev.ua spoke with the developer about his experience in game development and work on a project that was previously nominated for the Indie Cup.
Ukrainian Level Designer Eduard Pizhuk is working on the game Catfall, about a lonely cat astronaut who managed to survive a spaceship crash.
dev.ua spoke with the developer about his experience in game development and work on a project that was previously nominated for the Indie Cup.
Hi. I’ve always wanted to make games, but I’ve never worked in game development, IT, or other indie projects before. A few years ago I took the first steps towards my dream and started studying level design. I planned to «break into» the industry, but, as often happens, I never broke through.
I didn’t receive any adequate job offers and was faced with a choice: either give up or try to make my own little game.
While I was learning level design, I practiced creating blockouts inspired by various games to fill my portfolio, get a little familiar with Unreal Engine, and get some practical skills. And so I finished another 30–40-minute level inspired by TLOU, showed it to a few friends, threw it in my portfolio, and that was it. In essence, several months of work just went into the drawer. I wasn’t going to work like that anymore, and that’s when the idea for my own game came up.
This is going to be a bit cliché, but I opened my collection of assets that I collected from freebies from Epic Games and started thinking: «what game could I make with this?» There were a lot of sci-fi environment assets, and there were also cats (because I love them and last year I already worked for a few days on a prototype of another cat game). So, cats and sci-fi… I started dancing from that.
I understood that the only way I could make my first game was this: I would either come up with a story for the existing scenery, or I would start by creating a cool story and then I would never find the resources to implement it, because creating a high-quality 3D environment is very expensive, and simply unaffordable for me.
It’s a really funny situation with Stray, that stray cat is chasing me. Yes, I played Stray, but it was not my reference at all, the game was almost not in my thoughts until I showed people the first prototype, and they were like: «this is Stray!» The thing is, I’ve never made a game, and I couldn’t even imagine that I could make something even remotely similar to a masterpiece like Stray.
Actually, my main inspiration was CopyCat, a much simpler game about a cat, but it was the one I looked back to when I started working on Catfall.
Maybe it was an accident, maybe I was inspired unconsciously, but right now Catfall really reminds people of «the same cat game» and I guess that’s okay. Of course, I’ll try not to make a Stray clone, but we’ll see what comes of it :)
Unfortunately, my pet is already in cat heaven, but it’s obvious that this game wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for my cat, she lived with us for 15 years and was the best.
Catfall is being created on UE5 because it’s the only thing I know how to use more or less. I’m working on the game myself, my girlfriend drew me the logo, and my friends are helping with playtests.
Currently, 53% of Catfall’s subscribers are from Ukrainians, so I think it’s right to do Ukrainian voice acting. In the first demo, which was for Indie Сup, all the characters were voiced by me and my girlfriend.
It’s too early to say who will do the voice acting for the final version, but I really hope it will be famous voices.
It is worth expecting an emotional adventure through the eyes of a cat who will have a specific goal — to find his owner, but the world around him will make its own adjustments to the story.
The core of the gameplay is exploration, light puzzles, and a bit of platforming. I’m trying my best to make the process of carefree wandering around locations for the sake of cat business enjoyable.
It’s still hard for me to predict what the game will end up being like upon release, but I expect there to be a noticeable influence from Copycat, Farewell North, Stray (hello again), and maybe some Uncharted (as an example of the perfect adventure game to aspire to).
It all started 7 months ago, there were breaks, changes in the vision of the final look of the game, but now the development has gained a good steady pace. Work is in full swing and a public demo is being prepared, which I hope will be available for streaming in the near future.
I would like to believe that Catfall will be fully released at the end of this year, which is why Steam has listed the release date as 2025. But those who rush will make people laugh… So I think it’s fair to say that Catfall will be released as soon as it’s ready. It might be a bit of a wait, but I hope this feline space adventure will be worth it :)
