Animal Survival Horror Game (some mature content)

[ChickenFetus]

You forgot about windows, cats love them! Just go ask Patches or Evil, they will confirm it!

What about alien species being the root cause of humans vanishing from Earth?

For there to be alternate 'mutated' species while MamaCat and her kin remain untouched might be related to a few things.   One: cats might be naturally immune to whatever MIGHT have caused this sudden change in genetics.  Two: these cats, the pets, might not only be domesticated but pure by design.  That is to say, raised by humans that way.  The Calico (which you now have ^_^) might have been a pet that has now become feral.  Three:  Whatever happened, MAN did it years ago ala THE MIST, but on a more subtle note to our own environment rather than bringing in another.

Could be a good backstory or something for filler.

Oh, you got other birds of prey out there.  Hawks, falcons, eagles, evil Fanged VampireDucks that have speech impediments.

As far as plot goes, I don't intend to add an actual answer for why people are gone and the world is different. Aside from adding to the mystery and leaving it open to interpretation, this emphasizes that the animals have no way of understanding what happened or why things suddenly changed. I also think it adds to the feeling that the player is only a minor and unimportant background element to a much bigger story that's beyond their control.

This obscurity will also apply to the origins of monsters or creatures that look like they're derived from animals.

However I can say that humans have only been gone for about a year (the litter in the game is mama's first) and humans still exist but are incredibly rare. Although I intend to leave ambiguous if that rarity is global (near extinction) or regional (e.g if they're only rare in the area due to it now being either dangerous or inaccessible.) It's also ambiguous if the change happened suddenly in the town she lives in, or if it started elsewhere awhile ago and eventually grew large enough to impact the town mama lived in.

My question and survey was more in regards to issues with design and gameplay. Real animals are very hard to design (especially with how detailed I want the sprites to be and how picky I am with sound effects matching what animal actually sounds like) and are more limited in gameplay. This would mean less variety which I imagine wouldn't be very popular. However people are already familiar with, and often attached to, real animals and would be more likely to consider this project if it had creatures they already had interest in. Plus not having real animals would lessen the impact of many of the themes I had set up.

So far, from what I've gathered from people's interest, real animals are probably going to be a certainty. But I still want to wait a bit before deciding about fictional animals.

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Great Horned Owls are the only raptors in the prototype, but diurnal raptors such as eagles or hawks are likely to be added to the actual game (and thanks for the calico). Also interesting idea of using open or cracked windows to enter buildings, I'll keep it in mind.

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Although these images are mostly not related game, they do give a general idea of how I draw fictional animals.

Altered Animals

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Unearthly

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Something Inbetween

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