You are a stray cat with ambitions. The street belongs to the dogs and the humans have not noticed you yet, and you are going to fix both of those things — one block, one recruit and one marking post at a time.
The loop
Be cute at people. Charmed humans start paying you in treats; the truly devoted ones follow you around, pay double, and open doors you are physically incapable of opening yourself.
Spend those treats on other animals. Rats, pigeons and other strays will join you if you feed them enough, and once they do they fight for you and take orders from you.
Then take ground. Every block has posts to mark, and a block you hold pays you treats, heals your squad, and is where you come back after a bad decision. More ground means a bigger squad, and a bigger squad means more ground.
No experience points, anywhere
Beating an enemy gets you nothing. Not a point, not a coin, not a level.
Treats are the only currency in the game, they come only from charming people and holding territory, and they are also what you spend on healing, on recruiting and on getting stronger. So there is nothing to grind, no safe corner to farm, and every single purchase is a decision about what you are choosing not to buy.
The city keeps its own hours
A day runs about four minutes. In daylight people are out and easily charmed, and the dogs are half paying attention. After dark the street empties, charm barely works, and the dogs can see you coming from much further away.
So you farm by day and you take ground by night — and the humans who genuinely love you are the ones still out there with you at three in the morning.
And then the mayor's dog
Take half the district and it comes looking for you. It hits harder as it gets hurt, and every so often it roars and scatters your entire squad — who do not forget their orders, but do lose you several seconds getting back to them. Beat it and the run is yours. You have nine lives to spend finding out.
Where it is now
This is an early build, and it is honest about that. The whole game is there and playable end to end — charm, recruitment, squad orders, the overhead command map, territory, upgrades, the day and night cycle, and a boss you can actually beat.
What it does not have yet is a face. Every character in the current build is a placeholder shape. That was deliberate: it is much easier to judge whether a game is fun before it is pretty, and much harder to change once it is.
What is next
Art and animation. The cat, the squad, the dogs and the street. This is the next milestone and the biggest one.
Sound. None of it exists yet.
More of the city. One district is proof; the game wants several.
Saving a run, so an empire can outlive an evening.
