Total Meow: How a Motion Design Studio Got Its Claws into Gaming

Take one look at Total Meow, and you’d be forgiven for thinking that it was the Nintendo Switch’s latest release. There’s something about the joyful box art that lends itself to the feeling of being on a GameStop shelf or a digital storefront, popping with colour and character in the style of great Super Mario games. But - unfortunately - Total Meow isn’t a real game. Instead, it’s a tantalising proof-of-concept from BIEN. 

Following on from the creation of an eye-popping AR experience as part of a client-commissioned project, the team at the motion design studio decided that they hadn’t seen enough of Captain Cat Cuddles. And so, sensing an opportunity to explore the world of game design and character creation, they embarked on a passion project. A trailer and promo package for a fully-fledged Total Meow video game is the result, along with the sense that there might still be more out there for Captain Cat Cuddles and his adventures. 

To find out more about the project, and why the time was right for BIEN to start exploring the gaming world, LBB sat down with co-founders Ricardo Roberts and Hung Le, senior producers Alisha Kramer and Nicole Beyer, associate director Carlos Alegria, and illustrator, designer, and animator Deanna Reilly…

Above: A fully-realised trailer brought the world of Captain Cat Cuddles to life. 

LBB> What was it about this project that made you want to take the jump and do a passion project based off of the back of it?

Alisha> I mean you’ve met Captain Cat Cuddles, right? How could that not spawn a passion project? 

Ricardo> You joke, but there was an element of that to it for sure. We saw this project as an opportunity for us to play. Having done the AR portion for a client, we all felt it had a life which could evolve and go further in quite an ambitious way. So we decided to put together a promo package and trailer, all built around that central character of Captain Cat Cuddles. 

It needed to be relatable, fun, inviting, nostalgic, and something which positioned us closer to the gaming industry. 

LBB> So how did the Captain Cat Cuddles character come to life from the original brief? 

Carlos> We had a lot of freedom in the original brief. We simply needed to find a way to showcase the AR technology, and we landed on a cute cat character as a way to do that. We presented other options, including one inspired by Avatar: The Last Airbender, but I think the whole team was aligned that Captain Cat Cuddles was the right way forward. Fortunately, the client agreed! 

But in addition to the character, we were equally thoughtful about the environment and the world it was part of. We took it quite seriously, always asking why the character would dress or behave in certain ways. What were Captain Cat Cuddles motivations?! I think if you want to create something of genuine quality, these are the questions you need to ask. 

The backstory we landed on for Captain Cat Cuddles is that he used to be a cook on a pirate ship. But now, he’s trying to find his own ship and his own crew - but he needs to win respect and renown in order to do that. 

LBB> The game looks as though it could have been part of the golden age 90s era of early 3D platformers. Did you have any specific games from the real world in mind as your influences? 

Carlos> For sure - Super Mario 64 is one of the most obvious, with its colourful world and characters leaping around a cartoonish environment. Influences like that helped us craft something simultaneously fun and easy to understand - if it was too complicated, we ran the risk of players bouncing off the game. 

LBB> What are the odds that, one day, we might get to actually play this game? 

Ricardo> We would all love to one day develop a video game. I’d say there is a small chance… but I can’t give you a figure. There are no development plans currently however, should the stars align, never say never. 

Hung> This was a proof of concept, but I wish we could have had the chance to show some actual gameplay in the trailer we made. We created this as a business case to show our capabilities, so it is an area we want to revisit when the right opportunity comes along. So yes, anything is possible - even though we appreciate that actually making a game is a huge challenge and undertaking. 

LBB> What was the biggest challenge that you faced when putting this project together, and how did you overcome it?

Nicole> For me it was figuring out the AR component and how we can make sure that the character’s movement felt natural within it. It’s very technical, and we needed to learn on the fly. 

We navigated it thanks to the help of our partners, along with a healthy amount of self-education. And that’s a positive, because it means next time we’re faced with an AR challenge we’ll be able to tackle it armed with all the knowledge we picked up here. 

Deanna> I was handling the character animation component, and that was a significant challenge in the opening scene. We decided to try a software called Rokoko AI in which you can record yourself doing what you want to do, send it to Rokoko, and then it spits out a skeleton moving in the same way which you can map onto a character. That gets your character moving, but it’s a bit messy - there’s so much work in getting the movements to look smooth. 

LBB> Something really cool we noticed in the trailer was the map, in which all the islands are shaped like cats, complete with cat-centric names. Where did that idea come from?

Carlos> Well noticed! That was all about making the world deeper and more involved, another layer in the character’s world. We needed to be very efficient in the way we told the story in a short trailer. So the map is all about giving a sense of place which feels right at home in the visual world we created.  

LBB> Ricardo, I want to come back to the way that BIEN is aiming to get closer to the world of gaming as a studio. Why is that? 

Ricardo> Well, there’s a couple of reasons. The first is that we’re all huge gamers. But the second is that we see gaming as the future of entertainment. 

We see what’s going on right now in the streaming and network cable world, and gaming is a really attractive alternative option to that. Gaming is on a growth path, whereas it feels like other more ‘traditional’ parts of the industry have plateaued. So it’s a way for us to diversify our portfolio whilst also, y’know, having fun. 

LBB> In an ideal world, is there a dream type of game that you’d like to work on? 

Carlos> I’d love to try my hand at something in the world of indie games at some point, because there’s a lot of creative craft and passion in that part of the industry. But I love how each game has its own art, its own visual world, and the idea of jumping between those different worlds excites me. 

Deanna> Of course, I’d love to put a game like Total Meow together for real. Not least because I want to understand how that pipeline looks and how different it is to the worlds of film and motion design. 

LBB> And so, finally, what kind of ideas would you like to incorporate if you came back to Total Meow in the future?

Deanna> I’d love to work on the big bad guy. Throughout the process I’d always pictured a big gluttonous Bowser-style baddie, but we never got the chance to actually incorporate visually. That’s something I’d like to add. 

Ricardo> Or maybe the bad guys could be animal control, looking to capture Captain Cat Cuddles after he made his escape from the ship? There’s some fun potential there for enemy design. 

Alisha> Ha, yeah that would work! There are so many directions we could take it, and it’s been really fun to experiment with ideas throughout the process. Hopefully this won’t be the last we see of Captain Cat Cuddles.