🐱 ckitty - Terminal Kitty Generator

A procedurally generated terminal kitty, inspired by cbonsai's organic growth algorithms. Watch as ASCII art kitties come to life with different poses, animations, and personalities!

      /\_/\  
     ( o.o )      ckitty - Terminal kitties that
      > ^ <         grow, play, and sleep!
     /     \    
    (_)   (_)   

Features

v3 (Latest) - Procedural Generation

• Multiple Poses: Sitting, sleeping, playing, and walking kitties
• Organic Animations: Tail swaying, eye blinking, whisker twitching
• Interactive Environment: Yarn balls, mice, and birds
• Advanced ASCII Art: Curved lines, detailed features
• Live Generation: Watch the kitty being drawn piece by piece
• Screensaver Mode: Continuous generation of new kitties

v2 - Growth System

• Step-by-step kitty construction
• Customizable tail types (straight, curved, question mark, excited)
• Variable body dimensions and fluffiness
• Different ear styles and whisker lengths

v1 - Basic Animation

• Simple animated kitty with movement
• Basic color support

Installation

Requirements

• C compiler (gcc, clang)
• ncurses library
• math library (for v3)

Building from source

# Build all versions
make

# Install latest version
sudo make install

# Build specific version
make ckitty_v3

macOS (Homebrew)

brew install ncurses
make

Linux

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-dev

# Fedora
sudo dnf install ncurses-devel

# Arch
sudo pacman -S ncurses

make

Usage

Basic Commands

# Generate a random kitty
ckitty

# Watch kitty grow live (like cbonsai)
ckitty -l -c

# Specific pose with colors
ckitty -c

# Rainbow mode
ckitty -r

# Screensaver mode
ckitty -S -c

# Generate same kitty with seed
ckitty -s 42 -c

# Custom message
ckitty -m "Hello Kitty!" -c

Controls

• q or ESC - Quit
• Space - Change pose (v3)
• n - New kitty in screensaver mode (v3)

Options

-h, --help          Show help message
-l, --live          Live generation mode (watch it grow)
-d, --delay <ms>    Animation delay (default: 40000)
-c, --colors        Enable colors
-r, --rainbow       Rainbow mode
-s, --seed <num>    Set random seed for reproducible kitties
-i, --infinite      Run indefinitely
-S, --screensaver   Screensaver mode (continuous generation)
-m, --message <msg> Display custom message

Examples

# Playful kitty with yarn ball
ckitty -c -s 123

# Sleeping kitty
ckitty -c -s 456

# Live growing rainbow kitty
ckitty -l -r

# Screensaver with custom delay
ckitty -S -c -d 20000

Demo

Quick Start

# See a random kitty
./ckitty_v3 -c

# Watch a kitty being "grown" (like cbonsai)
./ckitty_v3 -l -c

# Screensaver mode - endless kitties!
./ckitty_v3 -S -c

Gallery of Kitties

Different seeds generate different kitties:

# Playful kitty with yarn ball (seed: 123)
./ckitty_v3 -c -s 123

# Sleepy kitty (seed: 456)  
./ckitty_v3 -c -s 456

# Alert kitty (seed: 789)
./ckitty_v3 -c -s 789

Algorithm

Like cbonsai, ckitty uses procedural generation:

1. Pose Selection: Randomly chooses kitty's pose
2. Part Generation: Builds kitty parts in sequence
   • Tail (with curve algorithms)
   • Body (with fluffiness factor)
   • Head and facial features
   • Environmental elements
3. Animation System: Continuous updates for lifelike movement
4. Physics: Tail sway uses sine waves, whiskers have twitch probability

Comparison with cbonsai

Feature	cbonsai	ckitty
Procedural generation	✓ Trees grow organically	✓ Kitties built step-by-step
Live mode	✓ Watch branches grow	✓ Watch kitty parts appear
Randomization	✓ Unique trees	✓ Unique kitties
Animation	✓ Swaying leaves	✓ Blinking, tail swaying
Customization	✓ Tree types, sizes	✓ Poses, colors, features
Screensaver	✓	✓ Endless kitties
Seeds	✓ Reproducible trees	✓ Reproducible kitties

Contributing

Feel free to submit issues and enhancement requests!

Credits

Inspired by cbonsai by John Allbritten

License

GPL-3.0