Check out the live project and code on p5.js! Click on the sketch and type ‘pspspsps…’ Without messing up to fill up the screen and win the cats trust.

gameplay

A picture of the game in action

A few months ago, I got to attend the second anniversary party for Creative Coding NYC. I had never been to the meetup before, but a lot of my classmates at NYU IMA/ITP were involved, so I knew it had to be good. The anniversary was part scavenger hunt, part game jam, and part live coding rave.

We started the night off with a scavenger hunt that sent us out on the streets of downtown Brooklyn on a wet and humid NYC evening. The goal was to take pictures of different objects in order to add constraints to the projects that we would have to make later in the night. For example, we had to photograph a rat, a subway busker, and 4 pigeons a single frame.

trio

Me, Adalea, and JoshJoshJosh waiting for our next set of tasks

Once we finished the scavenger hunt, we had only a little over an hour to create a piece of art related to our journey on the streets of New York. And because of the scavenger hunt our constraints were:

  • The piece could be no larger than 64x64 pixels
  • The piece count not feature any curves
  • We could not use Python to make the piece

This shaped the aesthetic of our game, and made it clear that needed to make a pixel-based final product. Out of all of the tasks we completed, we decided that the bodega cat we photographed was the most unique, and decided to make our game around that.

bodega cat

The bodega cat we found in Gowanus

Josh got to work on creating a typing mechanic for the game, and I got to work making the pixel art and loading it into the sketch. Adalea contributed by recording the sound effects (‘pspsps’ and ‘meow’ when you reach the win condition). I had some difficulty loading the images and fonts in the correct way in p5.js, but luckily Dan Schiffman from the Coding Train was standing right behind me and helped me debug my errors. We finished the game with nearly minutes to spare and play tested it with the dozens of people who had started to show up for the rave part of the night.

sleeping cat pixel art

One of pieces of pixel art I created for the game

Reception

People loved the game! Bodega cats are such a well-known part of NYCs charm that people got the idea immediately and had fun with the mini game of typing ‘pspspsps’ without messing up. We ended up winning the most popular game of the night and were rewarded by a grand prize of a month membership at Brooklyn Spark, which I have yet to use.

Overall this was a small but cute project that I had a great time making. My teammate Josh Zhong created a video of the event that does a much better job capturing the vibe of the event - please give it a watch!

@joshjoshjosh.net Bodega Cat Simulator coming to steam next summer!! Maybe! @Levi V #creativecoding #nyc #ccnyc ♬ original sound - nicole