Introduce Yourself
An Introductions thread is pinned in the Off-Topic Forum, feel free to stop by and say hello!

Have any questions?
If you have any questions at all, post in the Q&A Forum! There are many of us who would love to answer your questions and help you get oriented. There is also a robust assortment of guides in the Guides Forum. A quick assortment of FAQs is included in the next post of this thread.

Long Term Development Plan
If you'd like to learn more about the long term development plan, you can see an outline in the Dev Corner.

Free Stuff!
There are user-organized freebies and giveaways in the Raffles & Giveaways forum over the next week, so do check those out.

"Advertisements"
It's okay to whitelist this site in your adblocker as we do not use an ad network. All "ads" at the bottom of the page are user-sponsored posts, featuring primarily pictures of users' pets and art projects or commissions! Visit the Promotions Policy article for more information on how to get your own image down there! The cost is $4 via ko-fi and is the primary method of funding the servers right now.

Hello and welcome to Cat's End! This post will have some quick information to help get you oriented.

People!

I'm Squid (they/them) and I'm the artist/developer/etc. of the site. This game is a single-dev project, with pretty much just myself doing all of the art, writing, coding, and so on. I also work full time outside of this, so you may find that this means the pace and process is a little bit different from games that are built by full teams.

The other admin account is @Naja (he/vi). Naja's role comes down to basically "the mod-iest of mods."

And of course.... this is my kitty. Her name is Pilot and she is the perfectest cat in the world:


Beta

This site is currently in beta, which means that I'm still working on building and cleaning up the main features of the site. We are nearing the very end of the beta plan now, with the only thing remaining before the launch party being a whole bunch of miscellaneous clean-up! You can check out the most recent update for more on the near future.

Unlike some betas, there will not be a data reset, so your cats are here to stay.

Game Priorities!

- This game is a slow/casual pace, especially compared to a lot of pet sites. It is mostly a matter of checking in briefly once a day and slowly building up your village over the course of time. Although you can go on adventures whenever you'd like, it's not really possible to speedrun the game.

The game is intentionally designed like this to make it easier for people who are busy with work and school to keep pace without feeling burdened by the site. You can get by just fine even if you only check a few times a week or just do your 10 minute dailies once a day.

Historically I've used "3 months" as the estimate for a village to start feeling established, but with cats being more and more available, that time has gone down considerably.

- There's a big lore focus to this game, and as we round out the main features, updates will largely be tied to world plots and site events for everyone to participate in. The world has a story to it that will slowly progress collectively. I have plans to allow the userbase to steer the direction of said plots with occasional voted on decisions and so on!

Navigating the Site

- The entire site can be navigated via keyboard. You can use standard keyboard controls (tab, shift tab, etc.) in Adventuring as well. If you see pagination on any page, you can go between pages using the left and right arrow keys.

Cat Prices

Certain cats can be very valuable. Please be sure to check prices before making sales or trades with other users, or before listing on the cat recruitment board. Some of these can fetch upwards of 10k notes.

Some things to watch out for in particular include albino cats and solid-pattern black cats.

City and Traveling

"Send Traveling" is essentially storage for excess cats and the rewards you get in the mail are not as good as what you would get from active cats doing your dailies. I highly recommend not sending cats traveling until you start to run out of space in your village.

"Send to the City" removes a cat permanently from the game. This can't be undone, so please use this feature with caution. The rewards you get are typically less than what you would get selling the cat to other users.

Adventuring

I recommend checking out the official Adventuring Guide before diving in. Adventuring is not intended to be easy at first. Locations are designed so that they get progressively harder the deeper you go into them, so please don't hesitate to turn around early on a few times until your cats unlock the level 2 abilities and build up more gear, equipment, and friendships.

Blocking Images

The game does have light horror themes, so if there are certain items or monsters (such as spiders) that bother you, I highly recommend using an adblocker to block certain assets. There is information on how to do this in the Adventuring Update post.

If Nestor's eyes are an issue, you can turn them off in your Account Gameplay Settings. You can also enable icons on cats and toggle off adventuring animations there.

Gathering

Gathering modifiers (bonuses and penalties) only apply to the bottom of the roll. This means that no matter how bad your cat is and how bad the weather is, your cat can always roll the maximum value. You're never locked out of getting the rare items, so do not be shy about putting your cats in jobs they are bad at if you need the resources that that job gives.

Terms of Service

Don't forget to follow the rules! For those who are just joining, here are a few reminders:

- You are limited to one account per person, so please do not make multiple. Accounts also can't be shared with others.

- We do not allow cross-site trading with other games.

- Funneling, or using one account solely for the benefit of another, is not allowed. For example, having a friend join just so that they can send you everything they get gathering each day (or so they can send you all the cats in the starter squad).

welcome everyone

welcome!!!

welcome everyone!

Welcome ^~^!

Welcome newcomers!

M'eowdy all~

Welcome to Cat’s End!!! We’re excited to have you!!

Welcome to the pixel cat collective!