GeoNews #3 - 2022 Mew Year

January 11, 2022

Important News

Introduction

The second half of December was a bit chaotic to say the least. The NONACO team decided to take it easy and use the downtime to focus on friends and family. With a fresh set of eyes and an eager attitude, we are ready to dive into 2022 with you all! Our vision for 2022 is to keep creating a game that anyone pick up and have fun playing.

This will be a quick newsletter, we have more substantial info to release in GeoNews 4.

GEOCATS:V2.5 - Extended Cold Snap

• We’re still working on this update. ^^
• A lot of our December energy has gone into IRL beurocratic stuff with the company. We’ve been making sure everything is going to run smoothly in the future.

GEOCATS:V3 - The Great Litterbox

• We’ve finished the Lichen-Conservatory map. It was a level that took quite a long time and effort to build. It will stand as the sort of central base of operations in V3. More info on it follows in the Arts & Culture section of GeoNews.
• Japhy and Kurt have built the quests for the waterfall level and are adding more components to the game each day.
• Wolfi is putting the finishing touches on the Geodex.
• Carter has been making lots of tunes, you can hear some samples in our Discord channel.

Arts & Culture

On preserving biodiversity in the desert. An interview with Dr. Letharia Felina

Letharia Felina gained notoriety for engineering a strain of catnip called ICE-9, which has the adaptation to survive at a temperature of Zero Kelvin. She’s here today to share information about her work at the Lichen-Conservatory.

GeoNews - What’s the Worst part of your job?

Dr. Letharia - Waking up early in the mornings.

GN - Haha, I feel you. What’s keeping you up at night these days?

DL - I’ll get right to the point. Some cats go crazy for houseplants. They sometimes go overboard and even take endangered plants away from nature, which causes a huge risk to the habitats of the GeoRing.

GN - Ah, I see the issue. Is there anything you do to solve these issues?

DL - My team and I are pointing our flowers to the sun, so to speak, and finding optimistic solutions.

GN - …Sorry, what?

DL - Well, more people than ever would like to grow rare plants for themselves at home. We thought the best way to preserve these endangered species is to flood the markets with the cultivated variety.

This way, nobody has to go out into the wilderness and cut down their own rare plant to bring home. They can get their own plant from us to study and appreciate while leaving our ecosystems from being disturbed.

GN - Nice. What sort of plants do you cultivate at Lichen-Conservatory?

DL - We cultivate Lichens at the Lichen-Conservatory.

GN - Oh, ok - Makes sense…

DL - Lichens are a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and an algae.

My team grows special types of Lichen which have the unique adaptation to survive in the harsh Deserts of the Georing.

These ones are especially interesting to us because of their striking similarity to cactuses. This is a phenomena called convergent evolution, in case you’d like to learn more.

GN - Life… uh, Finds a way?

DL - Hm. Selective pressure has created this remarkable type of adaptive expression.

GN - Totally fascinating. Is the conservatory open to the public?

DL - Yes! I guess you could say we are a bit like a library that way.

We’re always happy to have visitors at the Conservatory, and offer daily tours of our collection.

GN - Excellent!

DL - We must warn you to be prepared for the difficult journey if you intend to visit us by foot through the desert…

Please bear with us, we’re still working on a better transportation system.

GN - Looking forward to it. Thank you for joining us. Any desert wisdom you would like to leave our readers with today?

DL - Plants are members of an ecosystem, and are even better enjoyed when met in the context of their own natural habitats. If these habitats cease to exist, we’ll simply have no context to appreciate these natural beauties.

(Players can look forward to finding Letharia Felina in V3 of Geocats.)

Research & Development

Would you like to join the Geocats team?

There’s a lot of work to do, and we’re looking for some more cool people to work on Geocats with us. Our team is fun, international, and passionate about our work. Do you have programming experience, or a passion to learn video game programming? Would you like to work with us as we begin marketing our game to more people? Here’s your chance! Please get in touch, we’d love to chat more!

Serverside

The GeoDex is coming along nicely. We’re eager to share it with everyone as soon as it’s ready.

NONACO Department of Hypertechnology

Following the release of V3, we will take a week or so to come up with new ideas for mini-games or quick standalone that would tie into GeoCats and Nonaco. It’s a bit like a hackaton, we’re calling it the Department of Hypertechnology. More info on this will be provided in future issues of GeoNews.

Editorials & Opinions

Mandatory Gift Exchange

My employer has told me there’s a mandatory gift exchange at Nonaco Parties. I wouldn’t mind the festivities if I wasn’t expected to attend over a dozen different get-togethers… Will the festivities never end‽

— Mittens

Dangerous Fieldtrips for my Poor Kitten!

Is anyone else outraged by the dangerous excursions that the NONACO education system is bringing our kittens to? So what if these fieldtrips are “Educational”… Doesn’t anyone remember the old saying about curiosity?

— Concerned Citizen

Communty Events

Various Prizes have been sent!

Our warehouse has been working overtime hours to get caught up with all of the prizes that our comunity has won in December. Look out for them in your Vulcan wallets.

If anything is missing, please get in touch. We’ll get it sorted.

NONACO “Fun-Zone”

Stray Cat Program

Do you have a stray or adopted cat in real life? Let us know, and we’ll happily send you a Geocat for being such a cool person! Send us a picture and note and we’ll get back to you… Please don’t dox yourself though. :)

Word-Search

One random person to complete the puzzle wins a Tacgnol. (Send Kurt a message on Discord if you think you’ve won!)

Join us on Discord, for more Geocracy!