Call the Cat — devlog
TL;DR: 178 days from opening the engine for the first time to being on three stores. 46 of those days weren’t spent making the game.
The question everyone actually has about an indie post is “how long did it take.” So this one starts with the dates.
The dates first
Day 0 to day 178 — start, early access, store registration, full release.
From the day I first opened the engine to being on three stores was about five and a half months.
The first 122 days and the last 46 were different jobs
The thing worth saying about that timeline isn’t the total. It’s that it splits in two.
Day 0 to 122 — making it run. Most of this stretch is things that didn’t work starting to work. The character moves, screens transition, saving works. You can see progress. For a beginner this part is honestly manageable: when you get stuck you search, you ask, and if it still won’t go you find another way.
Day 122 to 178 — making it shippable. This is where it got real. The game already runs, but putting it on a store surfaces an entirely different set of jobs: per-store registration requirements (icon specs, screenshot counts, age ratings, a privacy policy), different build settings per platform, whether it works on someone else’s device and not just mine, and fixing what early access actually turned up.
A large part of those 46 days was not making the game. None of it is in the tutorials.
Making it run versus making it shippable — two different kinds of work.
Shipping early access on day 122 was the big one
Putting out an early access build before the full release turned out to be the best call I made.
The reason is simple: a game that only runs on my machine isn’t finished. It’s fitted to my PC, my resolution, my control habits. Early access was the first time someone played it in a way I hadn’t predicted.
If I’d gone straight to full release, I would have met those problems in the review section of the finished game instead. For an indie title, early reviews are hard to walk back.
Is a three-store same-day launch worth copying
I put it on Android, Apple and Steam on the same day. I can’t really tell you to do that.
The three have different review processes, different required materials, different payment structures. Doing one first and the rest later may well be safer. I took the “if I’m going to hit all of it anyway, hit it at once” route — but that was a judgment I could afford because the game was small.
Things I only kept because I was a beginner
Looking back, some principles held precisely because I had no skill. Build one feature, run it immediately — change several things at once and you can’t find what broke. If it won’t work, cut it — instead of clinging to a feature, check whether the game still works without it. If you don’t know the right way, make it run first — executable code before proper code.
An experienced developer might do it differently. But for a beginner trying to reach a release, finishing beats polish — I still think that.
What came next
I thought day 178 would be the end. It turned out to be another start. That’s the next post.
Solo dev of Call the Cat, shipped after 178 days
on Google Play
and Steam.
The sequel, Call the Cat: Galaxy, is now on the App Store — still building it in public.
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