Plato’s Cat was created for the Global Game jam 2025 (theme: bubble) in 47 hours by me and 4 friends. This is the first COMPLETE 2 day game jam I have done. (Meaning that the game is finished). You play as Plato’s Cat and your purpose is to help your owner (Plato) climb out of their grief and depression:
“Climb the perilous spire of Plato’s distraught mind, fighting off inner demons with the help of Plato’s head – a shadowed and depressed version of him, granting you the ability to triple jump via bubble, and slash your foes.”
I conceived of the idea a few days before the jam when I was thinking about Plato’s allegory of the cave in the context of not truly being able to escape the cave of our minds without outside help (be that a new way to live, a person, or a cat.)
The pixel art style was chosen for it’s simplicity (it was a 2 day jam after all, and we needed speed) and the mechanics were narrowed down over the course of the jam as we realized what needed prioritization.
Initially we tried to implement a light mechanic, using the same light system as Project Contrast where you would take damage when you were in shadow, but ran out of time. See the initial concept below vs. the final product. Notice the tiles from the original concept were used!
Design Documentation
Below are the design docs for the initial ideation stage of the project. Level designs are courtesy of Luke and Kristian.
This level design was planned by Kristian and Luke and built by me in Gamemaker. Overall very happy with how it turned out!
Also see the devlog video cataloging the dev process + trailer below:
Credits:
Josh R.,
Kristian Poulsen,
Charlize Poulsen,
Luke Michaels creator of Hellopoly