Who is Catie?
Catie in MeowmeowLand is beautiful point-and-click adventure indie game. The player’s main task is to solve little puzzles to help the main character, Catie, find her way back home after she finds herself in a bizarre world of MeowmeowLand. The world of cats and ludicrous characters.
Our illustrator, Marek Hlavaty, came up with the idea of the game Catie in MeowmeowLand in 2010. The realization of bringing Catie character to visual form happened six years latter, in 2016.
Inspiration & Ideas
Marek’s main inspiration for creating Catie character was the legendary story of Alice in Wonderland. Hence the title Catie in MeowmeowLand. His love for the (original) book and its story of the journey through absurdly illogical and fantastic world always provoked him to make a game with similar narrative. The dislike for any kind of horrors was a stimulus to create mentally and visually comforting character, that would accompany a player through the game. Thus, an idea of adorable, cute little girl, who loves cats and runs after them wherever she sees them, was a logical choice.
Visual development
And so the visual development of Catie as a character began.
The satisfaction with the final visual form of Catie came in the moment, when she began to resemble a small school child whose parents brought her a cat’s hat and the child goes everywhere in it. And everyone thinks how cute that kid looks.
Also, from the drawing point of view, the main character of the game needed to be clearly legible and distinguishable. Easy to remember.
Animation of Catie character
After the illustration was done, Catie was brought to life by animation. An animator created a set of moves and expressions, that Catie has through the whole game. The specific girly kind of movements and reactions make her as a character alive and identifiable.
For animator it is also important to remember, that Catie is a child. That means that Catie’s movements need to be sometimes little wobbly, her strength has to be appropriate to child’s body and her expressions of joy or distress have to mirror those of a kid her age.
The same principle goes for game & level design. Creators need to have in mind that Catie is a small child discovering big mysterious world.
So far, audience’s reactions on Catie character have been more than positive. The visual side serves its purpose as Catie is notable and catchy.
If you like Catie as well, share her on your social media for more visibility and recognition 🙂