The creator of The Oatmeal, Matthew Inman, launched a new cat-themed mobile word game called Kitty Letter earlier this week it seems to play one of your silly comic books. That feeling was intentional, Inman told me.
“My comics have always been rhetorical,” he said. “You don’t interact with the comic, you don’t have a voice in it, you’re just experimenting. So with [Kitty Letter], I had the opportunity to introduce some elements in which people can play the comics and I thought it was a lot of fun. “
Kitty Letter has a structure that Inman described as “Scrabble combined with Clash Royale. ”Your goal is to defeat your opponent by spelling words from a combination of letters at the bottom of your phone screen. When you spell a word, you will send a small army of cats down an invisible “trail” towards your opponent. Meanwhile, your opponent is sending armies of cats to try to defeat you.
The game, in fact, would only be multiplayer at the beginning, Inman told me. This can be surprising to those who have already played the game, as it has a robust story mode that spans 13 chapters. But that story mode was born out of the creation of the game’s tutorial, Inman said.
“I started designing this tutorial on how to play, and then the tutorial became that single-player mode, where you have a neighbor who moves and tells the whole story about him,” said Inman. But then, he realized, “I went too deep. I had written all this, I thought, ‘I have to finish this’, and I ended up writing about 12 chapters. But it became my favorite part of everything. “
Inman also discussed the game’s free-to-play model, which is very generous. Unlike many free-to-play games, Kitty’s Letters story mode for single player and multiplayer are completely free, without restrictions. The decision to offer all of this came from what Inman did not like in other free games.
“I play free games, but I play them because I like the games,” said Inman. “The real mechanics involved, like grinding and unlocking chests and getting jewelry and coins, I hate them. I fucking hate them. If [developers] they were like, ‘pay us $ 20 and we’ll give you everything’, I would do that. I much prefer this model. ”
The game offers paid multiplayer cosmetics, but they do not provide any gameplay benefits and are buried in a menu. And Inman says their revenue is “virtually nonexistent”.
Inman acknowledged that he can offer the game for free because of his other successful ventures, which include The Oatmeal and the hugely successful card game Exploding Kittens. “I’m not just an altruistic guy who doesn’t want to make a living from work,” he said. “To be completely frank, we have gained a lot from our card games and some of the other things I do. With [Kitty Letter], it looked like we could just make it as pleasant as possible.
“This app generates more of that – and this is so corny – currency of love and joy, as if you had a joyful experience with the game,” he said. “So in turn, you love Exploding Kittens more, and maybe one day, if you want to buy a card game from us, you can.” It is a business model similar to that of The Oatmeal. Inman offers the comics for free online, but sells books and offers merchandise.
Inman has a lot of ideas for what’s next in the game. He would like to improve the arcade mode, add more levels for a player and eliminate errors. He would also like to port the game to Steam and the Nintendo Switch, but they may be a little further apart. “I would probably say six months,” he said.
And I had to ask: have cats always been the focus of the game?
“It was the cats from day one,” said Inman. “It was called Cats Royale, originally. “