parting thoughts + acknowledgements

a lot has happened since the day i decided that purrgatory would be my first finished full-length game. in the past two years, i wrote a novel, graduated from college, and went to hell. and i'll be honest — it hasn't always been smooth sailing. did i bite off a little more than i could chew? maybe. was it sometimes a grueling and thankless grind? sure. but did i get it done? 

you fucking bet!

purrgatory has taught me many things. i've gotten better at writing authentic characters. i've learned to plan out software architectures so that they don't turn into an unwieldy mess. (you don't want to see my dialog compiler — it's an autohotkey script that runs a series of notepad++ find-and-replace commands.) i've gotten somewhat better at drawing characters in unique poses and perspectives, though i'm probably still better off hiring an artist. 

on top of all that, i've learned certain strategies to wrangle my (apparently) adhd brain into working on a single project for months on end, like rapidly hopping between art, writing, and code. maybe more importantly, i learned to be patient with myself, and understand that things will get done at the speed that they get done — an apt lesson for purrgatory dwellers and game developers alike.

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the good news is, i didn't have to do it alone! i'm eternally grateful for the friends who listened to me complain endlessly about bugs, hyped up milestones frankly way more than they merited, and contributed to the project however they could. you'd be surprised by the number of jokes in purrgatory that were taken directly from our conversations.

a special thanks to niko and molly for lending me their guitar and vocal talent respectively, and wiz for composing two banging tracks for the ost. (that chord modulation in the meowseum never gets old — trust me, i've listened to it a lot over the past two years.) 

i'm indebted to chronocide for tracing my drawings hundreds of times to make them wobble, and my mom for filling the library with tiny little books.

shoutouts to scott for voicing that iconic meow, akarobin and ivee for playtesting, and gnomes for all of our insightful discussions. 

a big thanks to zardoru, who contributed not only an expression parser and a meow-rkov chain, but also their immaculate sense of humor. 

and last but not least, thanks to jude and uro for their constant companionship and support.

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i'm raring to get started on my other game ideas — like the robot dating sim, or the gay goblin dungeon crawler, or the rhythm shooter at the edge of the universe — but for now, i think i'll relax. maybe i'll visit a new library, or buy a new pair of jeans.

as always, keep an eye on my twitter @purrgatorygame for updates, or @nivrad00 if you're interested in my other projects. i'm not anticipating too much news now that the game is out, but who knows. maybe they'll put it in another museum :3

until next time!