Mega Cat Studios


Mega Cat Studios is an American video game development and publishing company located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, founded in 2015 by James Deighan, Nick Mann and Zack Manko.
Mega Cat develops and publishes games for older video game consoles, such as the Sega Genesis and the Nintendo Entertainment System as well as for current systems. The company also publishes physical releases of homebrew software, such as Old Towers by Retrosouls.

History

Mega Cat was founded in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania by James Deighan, Nick Mann and Zack Manko in 2015; they, alongside three other developers- Nathaniel Wilson, Andrew Marsh and Lauri Coderbrah- produced the studio's first game, Almost Hero, for the Nintendo Entertainment System, which generally received a positive reception. A major element of their business model of publishing new video games for "retro systems" has involved including a physical manual and case for each of their releases. Founder James Deighan says that the studio has sought to "recreate that experience of being in the back of your mom’s van on the way home from Hills, opening up the game and reading the instruction manual on the way home."
In 2017, the Mega Cat published Coffee Crisis on the Sega Genesis; that game was their first to later receive a Windows port with enhanced features, such as additional modes and improved graphics- it was later released on the Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Nintendo Switch. The PC version of Coffee Crisis was published in conjunction with Zerouno Games.
To avoid having to bring in investors or otherwise raise funding early on in the studio's history, Mega Cat focused on a balancing contracted work for various brands while continuing work on their own IP. The studio has done contract work for such clients as the Pittsburgh Pirates, Devolver Digital, and Columbia Records.
The studio has run crowdfunding campaigns on Kickstarter for Coffee Crisis, Log Jammers and Phantom Gear. Prior to its crowdfunding campaign, Log Jammers had been an official selection of the 2018 Indie Megabooth and won both the "Best Gameplay" and "Game of the Year" award at Gameacon 2017.
A number of the studio's games were featured as part of the Indie Megabooth, including the aforementioned Log Jammers as well as Little Medusa, Coffee Crisis, and Fork Parker's Crunch Out.
In 2020, ten of the studio's published games were included in a cartridge for the Evercade gaming system.

Games Published