9 Lives
By The Wildcat
Researching a mod like Cat-Life can become a daunting task. The original topics have been wiped away by crack attacks, changes in web host, and even a server hard drive crash. But this cat lives up to the old adage.
The story of Cat-Life begins almost five years ago on the Garg-o-holics forums. The Garg-o-holics, a forerunner of BWL and the successor to the original "Friendly Garg's Stories Site", had already produced a beta version of the mod GargArena.
With the GargArena mod team slowly disbanding and moving on to newer projects and games, the decision was made to release the beta as the final build. On the 15th of August in 2003, then team leader and site admin Friendly Garg presented the team-based multiplayer mod for download.
But the site regulars had already initiated the next great mod. A more ambitious project than GargArena. A secret project born of forum discussions and random new ideas.
Cat-Life started quietly. In early 2003, the GargArena mod's development cycle was already winding down. The coder for the team was drawn away by outside events in real life. Still other team members began to move on to newer games. Knowing that the project would be released, some team members expressed interest in something new. An original and adventurous Single Player experience.
Strikingly, the original, short-lived incarnation called for the player to exist as a Scientist-cat hybrid with cat friends.
Here is some new info on this mod:
- You play as a half scientist, half cat.
- Your name is Ernest :P
- Your enemies are NOT cats!!In fact those are your friends.
A story will be posted sometime.
Members interested in starting the project joined the new Team "Cat-Life", once again led by Friendly Garg. At that early stage, one of the most daunting challenges for this mod commenced... the search for a coder. Map work initiated and story ideas were discussed privately. Then, on the 8th of August 2003 (a matter of days before the release of GargArena) Cat-Life was announced.
Deep in the bowels of the Black Mesa Research Facility, scientists have been working on some sick biological experiments... involving cute little kitties. Oh, the horror! - Well, that's the story behind The Garg-O-Holics insane mod, Cat Life, which they have been working on secretly. Those that REALLY want to know more about this mod can go to their forums.
Many members of the forums had pet cats and a series of topics developed from old pet stories. The subject soon turned to the nature of Gordon Freeman's cat... and debates about other scientists arose. And soon a different idea for the mod formed. Public forum discussions revolved around suggestions for cat moves and weapons.
Progress continued with forum submitted models and skins. There had even been teaser images of a Garg-Cat and a scientist-cat. However, due to forum demand, the principle story was changed.
We've been recently discussing plans and the story about Cat Life on the forum and with our team. Most voted to be playing as a cat rather then the story we previously had (mutated half scientist / half cat ).
***
You'll be playing as a cat, trying to escape Black Mesa. Your master, one of the scientists, has died and you have to find your way out on your own. You'll be having enemies such as headcrabs and houndeyes so the game wouldn't get too difficult with large aliens. There will be larger enemies in the game, but these will be taken out on a different way. After all, your not a super cat and you can't carry weapons!
Ironically, it was in one of the earliest news posts on ModDB in which Friendly Garg made an idle comment that proved to be negatively prophetic.
We want this (mini)mod to be finished in a couple of months! not a couple of years!
Another new title was attracting attention in late 2003. During May's E3, the new Source engine was demonstrated to fawning crowds. With a release date for September and promises of an ultra-extensive Standard Developers Kit, Half-Life 2 was a dazzling new ideal in game modding.
Discussions on the Garg-o-holics forums quickly turned to delaying further progress to make use of the Source engine, slated for a late September release. Unfortunately... Half-Life 2 was delayed. And delayed. And delayed. And delayed.
Therefore, Cat-Life remained a GoldSource project. The Garg-o-holics managed to produce a fair amount of new planning in the early days. A "faked" concept image or two were prepared. Forum polls appeared regarding the name of our cat. Special cat moves were discussed and diagrams were prepared. For a time, there was even an effort to produce the Half-Life version of the mod prior to Half-Life 2's ever-changing release date.
There isn't much going on at the moment on Cat Life to report, so I made one screenshot (exclusive) from Edgar's map (map1). We're still looking for a few mappers to finish this mod as quick as possible, since we want this mod to be released before Half Life 2 ships!
Those hopes began to fall apart as Friendly Garg faced a number of issues ranging from real life problems to an attack on the website and its host server during early 2004. He was the leader of both Team GargArena and Team Cat-Life. He also happened to be producing the majority of the new content among the image stories and was spending a tremendous amount of time tracking news of the Half-Life series for the site. At that time, volunteer help for the Garg-o-holics website was nearly non-existent.
The January 30th attack on the Garg-o-holics host, hlgaming/EdgeNetwork, proved disastrous.
Greetings Hosted Sites,
It is with annoyance and shame to admit on the 30th January, someone successfully hacked our server and overwrote all index.* files with a signature message.
Every project homepage was gone. The main page and forums were gone. Even the story scripts were overwritten. Ultimately, Friendly Garg felt that his hobby had become too much of a full time job and that perhaps someone else would be better suited to administer the website and lead the mod teams.
In March, after more then a month of down time due to real life, he posted requests for volunteers to assume control of the website and restore it. Further, he posted requests for new team leaders for both mods.
There were no volunteers.
On the 2nd of May, Friendly Garg finished restoring the basic functions of the Garg-o-holics website and announced that no further restoration would be implemented. Instead, volunteers were needed to build all pages from scratch. The task was undertaken by loyal forumites thankful merely to have the site restored after three months.
It was at that time that Friendly Garg began a fresh recruiting effort for Cat-Life. The original team had collapsed under inactivity and an entirely new Team Cat-Life would be needed. Also, the decision was made to change Cat-Life's engine. The partial team that formed hoped that the Source engine would offer revival for the mod.
In August of 2004, pre-loading of Half-Life 2's content began via steam. After release, Friendly Garg tinkered with the Source SDK toolkit and produced the first Half-Life 2 image story using model viewer and map screenshots. He also experimented with mapping on a few occasions.
Regrettably, Team Cat-Life did not experience a new surge of activity. After all, modding for HL2 was a relatively new experience and a lengthy hiatus had done nothing to bolster interest in what was effectively still a fledgling mod about a cat.
There were also continuing issues with the Garg-o-holics host server. Additional minor attacks on the forums, which had become the life’s-blood of the mod, virtually nullified Cat-Life discussion. At one point, the question of maintaining the GargArena and Cat-Life sites arose. Was it really worth the trouble?
The forum members remained hopeful, and so Friendly Garg updated the mod pages and retained the Cat-Life forum. In December, the entire Garg-o-holics Portal changed host services. Now hosted by hl2files, planning for Cat-Life resumed.
Before we can bring this great mod back to life again, we are in need of only one coder! And it can be a lazy one too... Still could use some extra mappers, so if interested in a mapping position, pm me!
***
We are still currently looking for a webpage designer... Cat-Life also seeks a modeler.
Subsequently, for the first time, Cat-Life found a new team leader. Syringed, one of the original team members, began recruiting almost immediately, and plans for a new Cat-Life site were announced. A new art style was proposed and interest in the mod grew.
We're not quite sure the direction of art the mod will go but possibility of cel-shaded graphic novel look or "XIII" style artwork for the mod... Reading the comments about Cat-Life, I want people to understand that Cat-Life will not be overly comical but more of an action/horror movie feel but the cat is merely the bystander and victim of the conflict before him. (Ala Stephen King's Cat Eye).
Regrettably, that was the limit to the new updates. Syringed relinquished the leadership role and the mod sank back into hiatus. Worse however, the Garg-o-holics Portal suffered a series of setbacks and fell into disrepair. Once again, the forums were attacked and broken. The activity in the story community dropped drastically. And the mod team again fell apart.
Friendly Garg once more sought volunteers to assume control of the site and mods. For a second time, there were no volunteers.
For nearly a year, there were barely a few news updates posted on the home page. The site was stricken by inactivity and there was no forum community to keep Cat-Life alive... until June of 2006.
June brought a revival of the website under new leadership. The Garg-o-holics Portal was wiped away and Bored With Life settled in its place. The original forum posts were lost, but somehow the ideal remained.
So still want to make the cat life mod?
LOL i still got the old source code :Pplz there still must be some hope ^_^
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dont let this mod die guys it sound cool
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Yeah it sound cool do not let this mod die !!!
Even more so, the ModDB community was still waiting with baited breath. The mod had managed to maintain a watch list of over 200 members despite the many pitfalls it had encountered.
Friendly Garg posted one more request for a new Team Cat-Life leader in July 2006. The response was nearly immediate. Redfox899 accepted the role of Team Leader and initiated plans to take the mod in an entirely new direction.
He announced that the mod would once again be developed for GoldSource due to reasons such as player scaling and the simplicity of modability. He also introduced the mod as a comedy. The storyline drew mixed reactions and the cat became known as "Hitler Jesus cat". Obviously, the new story line was a fairly drastic deviation from all prior concepts. It featured a head mountable laser and the reincarnation of various people/entities to create one tyrannical feline bent on surviving Black Mesa to take over the world.
I usually do humor and being serious in a mod about a cat. Don't worry, you still play as a cat, however.
Alas, the latest manifestation of Cat-Life lasted slightly over a month. Little more then the new story ever appeared. With heartfelt regret, Redfox899 posted his resignation. He pointed out his many other mod projects and a complete lack of time for developing another. He apologized for accepting the role of team leader saying...
First off, I must say I didn?t have the time to donate to this project when I took the position. It was a really bad idea, and I shouldn?t have taken it in the first place.
Second off, I believe my ideas simply wouldn?t fit the aim of this mod. It?s simply too hard to get motivated for this mod when I can?t even fit the mold that this mod requires.
So, to keep it simple, Cat Life needs another leader.
Friendly Garg was thrust back into the leadership role, but was well outside of the Half-Life universe by that time. He had turned fully to WoW and had established a new life as a south-park style comic artist on deviantART.
This seemed to be the final death throw for Cat-Life. There was no mod team. No leader.
Despite pleas from the community, no volunteers were found. BWL moved on, but the leadership maintained the Cat-Life page and forum in hopes that some day, some one would save our poor cat.
Another year passed...
And then... on the 6th day of October, 2007 one of the loyal original Team Cat-Life mappers made a surprise announcement.
if ya want something to be done you gotta do it yourself?
i been thinking 4 a wile now and. and this mod wants to, scream to be realive.
gonna give this a try. i been doing some god ol hl1 mapping now and came up with some relly good looking maps. sofar i got 3working singelplayer map and one mp map.
BiGToM (aka sayrken) assumed the role of Team Cat-Life leader with deliberate intent. He started working on the mod single-handedly. He dropped the humor storyline for something more moderate. A serious story of a cat trapped within Black Mesa, but including comedic moments and allowing the story to grow organically.
Recruitment began anew. And suddenly screenshots appeared. A video. Real progress.
New members joined the team. Even former regulars joined the ranks after all these years.
The cat is still alive!
Steady improvement and progress is note worthy, but the project is still largely secretive. However, BiGToM recently released a few new morsels of information via an MSN chat.
Many wonder if the mod will contain much of the humor the previous storyline possessed. The answer is no. At least, not so deliberately or over-the-top. Instead, the newest incarnation will return to its more serious roots but feature secret areas containing gags. There will also be several fun moments featuring soldiers. BiGToM also mentioned an un-lockable "super secret world".
Cat-Life will be Single Player only during its first release. However, if the team is capable, there will be a Multi-Player add-on pack.
The game will indeed be built for GoldSource, but after it is completed alternatives may arise. Specifically, BiGToM suggested two possibilities. One is that the mod may be converted to Source. The second is the possibility of mirroring the Half-Life series. Effectively creating a sequel [Cat-Life 2] using the Source engine.
Almost five years after this mod formed in the minds of forum regulars, we may finally see the cat clawing its way to freedom one headcrab at a time. The recent press release seeking new Team Cat-Life recruits has had a pleasant degree of success. BiGToM indicated that he has received several emails from people that wish to join. And more importantly... after nearly five years of development... Cat-Life... has... a... coder.
Presented by BWL Development
Quotes taken from:
The archives of Hlgaming.com<
The Cat-Life ModDB Profile and Archived News - Moddb.com
BWL and its forums - Bwl.hl2files.com
