We asked indie game developers to send us pictures of their cats. And of course, they sent a lot. Here’s a selection of our favourites. By Keith Stuart
“My cat is aggressive. I wake up in the morning and the first thing he does is gress me (that's the verb form of 'aggression', which my wife coined solely because of the cat). I'm not even the one who feeds him. On weekends we get up later so he escalates to biting. He hates being picked up. When we have visitors we won't let them stroke him and attacks their hands if they try. His nickname is Sodpot and he has earned it many times over. He stares angrily at anything bigger than him. He beats up next door's cat, which is twice his size. When I'm programming he jumps up on the back of my chair and smacks me in the head." Dominic Camus, developer of King Machine, on his cat, Reeve.Photograph: public domain"Puddy is a smashing looking lilac British shorthair. He's a typical Garfield in the house, but he likes to act tough outside with the neighbourhood cats. I believe game developers and cats go back a long way – cats tend to curl around your feet when you're sat at the desk and save a fortune on slippers, especially if working from home in just a pair of pants, like we do." Ric Lumb aka Putty CAD, a freelance games artist and designer, currently working on Zombie Piranha.Photograph: public domain"Her name’s Tali, short for Tali’Zorah, because I’m just that big of a Mass effect fan boy. She’s half Maine Coone and half… who knows? Personality-wise, she basically has two modes: Crazy or asleep. Basically, if I don’t let her out when she wants to, she’s everywhere, speeding around the flat and pretty much running up the walls. But for most of the day, she just lies around on my bed behind me and twists and turns herself into hilarious positions." Hannes Flor of Hypnotic Owl, currently working on strategy fantasy game The Wizard.Photograph: public domain“I have two cats — one called Chaos who’s a long haired tabby cat with a super bushy tail. When we first got him my wife and I entered a big debate on what we should name him — she insisted that it can’t be computer-game related, and after many attempts I snuck in a suggestion of Chaos. Due to my wife’s lack of knowledge of the Chaos Emeralds from Sonic she agreed. When we chose our second cat (a ginger tabby) she admitted defeat and allowed me to name him Tails! They love to sit behind my computer screen where it’s nice and warm.” James Woodward of MilkCap Studios, currently working on mobile game, Tiki Monkeys.Photograph: public domain“We own three cats. A black and white mix named Molly, her sister Mia and an orange female tabby named Momo. Molly is named after Peter Molyneux. My cats have territories. When I'm in their territory, I need to pay a fine by petting them. Once the fine is paid, they go off and do their own thing. They have zero interest in my life otherwise, except for Molly who comes running like a dog whenever she see you. When multiple years worth of projects die like bloated flies and the future looks grim, my cats are a reason to get up each morning and start again the day. If I didn't, they'd eat me." Daniel Cook of SpryFox.Photograph: public domain“I have one cat, Frank, who is a big ginger tom. He's the king of the neighbourhood, and quite often comes in covered in wounds from battle, defending his kingdom. But he's a big softy at heart, sneaking in to my daughter's room to sleep on her pillow and crying when he misses us. If he does walk across my keyboard, he always finds the one key combination that crashes things. Seems like cats and toddlers both have that skill.” Mike Heald, currently working on his own game, Keep Going, about depression, and a long-term project, Spheretic.Photograph: public domain“We have two domestic shorthair named Neko and Gato. They're from the same litter, but they mostly hate each other. Neko's sort of a bully – she'll launch unprovoked attacks on Gato, but whenever there's a scary new visitor, she'll hide in terror. Also, if she pushes Gato too far, there's usually trouble. Gato's a lunatic. She'll transport anything fluffy – socks, plush animals – all over the house.” James Silva of Ska Studios, creator of The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai.Photograph: public domain"Snowy is from a rescue centre although she is generally just referred to as ‘the Cat’. She has no tail or teeth and a wonky ear – she was like that when I got her. She tends to sit on my keyboard so when I go and make a brew, I often come back to find 'awaaaaawwwwwssssss ggggggggghhhhh' in the middle of my code, which is kind of unhelpful. She's also renamed my source code folder to 'milk hj'. I'm yet to determine what the 'hj' is for.” Dave Gill, currently working for Foundry42 on Star Citizen.Photograph: public domain“Our cats are named Starbuck and Apollo and they are Maine coon cats. Yes, we named them after the Battlestar Galactica characters. I always like to call cats the screensavers of your home, it is kind of relaxing to have them hanging around in the corner of your eye, sometimes doing something completely ridiculous. They are always present at Firedroid’s brainstorm sessions. We use giant sheets of paper to write and sketch our ideas and they tend to be annoying and lay on the places you want to write or draw. But it’s adorable so we let them.” Rachel Kremer of Firedroid in the Netherlands, currently working on Ice Cream Nomsters.Photograph: public domain“My cats are called Teun-Lek (ตึ๋นเล็ก) and Tuen-Yai (ตึ๋นใหญ่). Sometimes they lie down in front of my keyboard and on my design paper or notebook so I can't continue working. Sometimes they steal my cup of water. While I'm testing the game either on a screen monitor or other devices, they will pay attention and try to follow what is being shown in a curious way. It's safe to say that they help me debugging; it's like we're programming together. Except they can't code.” Wasin Thonkaew, an indie game developer based in Thailand, working on the iOS game, Zombie Hero: Revenge of Kiki.Photograph: public domain“My cat is called Mushroom, and she's a small little tabby moggy thing with a white bib and paws. Cats are independent and their low-maintenance nature is a big draw. It's like having an uncomplicated flatmate around to keep you company and occasionally stick their nose in your breakfast.” Adam Hay, sound designer at The Chinese Room, currently working on Everybody's Gone to the Rapture. Photograph: public domain“Jonesy is what they'd call a 'domestic short hair' I suppose, basically the most generic short hair cat you can think of. He is a light tan color, like coffee with milk, and is just a big lump of mellow love. Knowing the cat is happily sleeping near me just makes me happy somehow. It's very nice to look over and watch him being comfortable. It's kind of a stress reliever.” Jane Ng, a 3D artist at San Francisco studio, Campo Santo. Photograph: /public domainPhotograph: public domain“We have three cats. We seem to change their names quite often, but at the moment they are called Chancho, Minkins and Dr MuffinPaws alias Muncho. Cats are great company, they tend to be quiet, but they are also a mix of hilarious, mysterious, naive, dumb and super smart. And, of course, they have that amazing ability to jump nine times their height. I want to see that as often as possible.” Andrea Magnorsky, co-founder of BatCat Games.Photograph: public domain“I have so many cats! They make long programming sessions less stressful, and also I put references to my cats in some of my games. On one occasion a cat vomited on my keyboard. When I came to my office I almost screamed. The keyboard was unusable. Another time, my cat Othello marked his territory on one of my brand new monitors. I cleaned it immediately and didn't had any permanent damage. Luckily I don't receive many guests in the office – the smell wasn't that great." Riva Celso, an indie developer based in Italy.Photograph: public domain"Ralph is a rescue cat, named after the first game Kirsty ever worked on, Rotten Ralph. His make, model and age is unknown. He is probably quite old but he still chases lasers across the floor. He gets in the way. As soon as a laptop screen is lifted, he trots over and claims it by constantly rubbing his face on it, which makes seeing what you’re typing very difficult." James Marsden of Futurlab, currently working on Velocity 2X.Photograph: public domain
