Why make games for Kate?#
Kate is a fantasy console. This essentially means that while the hardware specifications are real, there is no off-the-shelf device that users can buy from a store (although they could build one themselves). Rather, users will mostly be running an emulator of the real Kate device on their computer or phone/smartdevice. Think of how people can run games made for 90s and 00s era consoles in their desktop nowadays; Kate is similar.
Unlike most commercial consoles, Kate is free to use, free to develop for, and entirely open source. As a developer, by making a game for Kate you get to:
Program for a single platform, distribute your game as a single file, and have players install and run it offline in any device the Kate emulator runs on, with a predictable experience;
Avoid scary security warnings when the player launches your game on Windows or MacOS (Kate prevents malicious applications from damaging the player’s device and data in a different way);
Use the same tools you’re already familiar with, as long as they at least offer an option to make a web export [1];
Make gigabyte-sized games that still start instantly in any browser, since players fully download your game’s cartridge file and install it only once, just like any other native game. There’s nothing to download during gameplay, so no lag or long loading screens there—internet connection isn’t even required;
Optionally, package your game as a web page so it can be uploaded to platforms like Itch.io and played directly in the browser;
On top of the APIs that are provided in the web platform Kate adds its own game-specific APIs that have a baseline expectation among players. This means that you don’t need to keep re-explaining yourself.
These APIs include things like safe and reliable persistent storage for your save data, support for screenshot and video capture of gameplay, simplified and consistent input handling regardless of whether players are using a keyboard, a touch-screen, a gamepad, etc.