A 2D platformer created for js13kGames 2025.\nYou play as a black cat starting in the basement and climbing your way up through the house, room by room, until you reach the attic — gaining new abilities along the way. Beating the game unlocks additional challenge modes.
\nSupports both keyboard and gamepad controls:\nJump: Space / A\nMove: WASD or Arrow keys\nWall Jump: Jump while pressing against the wall\nPause: Enter / Start\nDash: Down + Jump (unlocked later)
\nThere are no sounds — I wasn’t able to fit them in. Apologies!
\nA short but challenging game built under the 13k limit.
\n","source":"hakan-einarsson/basementcatascends","stars":0,"yt":"VtvCZAimw3g","comments":[{"at":410568638,"author":"Jasper Renow-Clarke","login":"picosonic","gh":26137750,"twitter":"femtosonic","text":"I liked playing your game, the graphics were fun and I liked the cat character
\nI couldn’t get the wall jump to work, maybe I’ll come back and try again another time
\nI did get the cat to slide down the side of walls, but not to actually jump from there, although pressing keys did slow the descent
\n","games":["Mochi and the midnight escape"]},{"at":410572483,"author":"Zang0l0tino","login":"Zang0l0tino","gh":167128079,"text":"The game is fun and has a cool mechanic, but I feel like the simple jump is sometimes rather hard; which is kind of frutrating. That aside the game just needs a bit of audio, but it’s alreafy great, congratulations!
\n","games":["The Black Cat's Escape"]},{"at":410574249,"author":"xem","login":"xem","gh":1225909,"text":"Cute minimalist graphics (very well animated), nice controls and level design. Not easy to beat!
\n","games":["I got up on the wrong foot"]},{"at":410625712,"author":"smhaaker","login":"smhaaker","gh":10542292,"text":"Very retro, and I like retro. I feel like i should be playing this with an atari joystick or something. Also quite difficult. Good job
\n","games":["CatNFish"]},{"at":410730752,"author":"Mezriss","login":"Mezriss","gh":615453,"text":"Really nice animations. It’s easier to control from gamepad, but there still was a stage where I just gave up.
\n","games":["Onamazu"]},{"typ":1,"at":410833961,"re":410730752,"author":"Håkan Einarsson","login":"hakan-einarsson","gh":54366704,"text":"Thanks for the comment. I’ve realized I probably made the game too difficult, preventing most players from fully experiencing it. The game has progression, with new abilities unlocked every 8 levels — double jump at level 9 and dash at level 17. I spent most of my time making the controls and character feel good, but now I see that many players won’t get to enjoy that. Beating all 24 levels unlocks several game modes, including one where you can replay the game from the start with all abilities. In hindsight, I should have included this option from the beginning.
\n"},{"at":410869667,"author":"Ryan Tyler","login":"tyler6699","gh":50468,"url":"https://carelesslabs.co.uk","text":"Loved the game, got stuck on a level with spikes on walls, the second spikes kept getting me as I jumped right left right.
\n","games":["Yarn Run"]},{"at":410925907,"author":"Andy Sommerville","login":"aksommerville","gh":1869768,"url":"http://aksommerville.com","text":"I love the graphics, and this style of platformer is usually my favorite. But the difficulty was a bit too hot. I felt like I was more wrestling against the controls and the wide hitboxes, than really playing. These are just Tuning problems of course – broadly, it’s a great game!
\n","games":["Nine Lives"]},{"at":410929160,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"The game is cool! You should make the collision box on the spikes a little smaller than the actual image because casual players and first timers will need a little wiggle room in these kind of games as they learn how to play.
\n","games":["Heimao"]},{"at":410992534,"author":"Cliff Earl","login":"Antix-Development","gh":17822130,"text":"Nice simple game. I found the cat got stuck in the corner of tiles quite a bit, still.. great effort :)
\n","games":["Black Cat - Nine Lives, No Mercy"]},{"at":411046041,"author":"Jonathan Vallet","login":"jonathan-vallet","gh":5329099,"text":"🧗♂️ I played a few levels. Jumping feels good and responsive, but the wall jump is very demanding . it requires perfect timing. Two small tweaks could improve the experience:\nAllow a short grace period before sliding down the wall, so the player has time to react.\nAfter the first wall jump, let the player just press jump to rebound in the opposite direction, without also having to press the direction key.
\n","games":["Witchcat"]},{"at":411081224,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Very nice graphics, especially the cute cat art and the animations! Good job adding the gamepad controls which definitely helps with games like this but ultimately I found it a bit too hard for me so I didn’t get to the end.
\nSome basic retro sound effects would’ve been a fun addition but I understand it would be hard to fit in the limit. Impressive you could fit in so many levels and abilities though, well done!
\n","games":["A Voiding Your Problems"]},{"typ":2,"at":411093799,"author":"Ania Kubów","login":"kubowania","gh":51362610,"url":"javascriptgames.online","twitter":"ania_kubow","text":"A wonderful 2D game! It would be great to see the theme of black cat explored more into the game play. Perhaps with a game board mimicking a cats life more, or obstacles that are related to things cats hate? With these small changes and some great music - this game has a lot of potential! Keep up the good work!
\n"},{"at":411126767,"author":"Elias Ku","login":"eliasku","gh":3038174,"url":"https://eliasku.win","twitter":"eliaskuvoice","text":"I really loved the cat’s animation - how it jumps and runs is so well done! 😻\nIt’s a bit of a shame there’s no music, but it’s awesome that there’s such a great variety of levels.
\nFor the future, it would be good to fix the issue where the cat gets stuck on the corners of blocks. I’d recommend improving the wall-jump mechanics to make bouncing between walls smoother. Some of the levels are quite challenging!
\nOverall, excellent work! 🎮👏
\n","games":["Cat Survivors"]},{"typ":1,"at":411144183,"re":411126767,"author":"Håkan Einarsson","login":"hakan-einarsson","gh":54366704,"text":"Thanks for the comments! There actually is a kinda coyote timer on the wall jump to make it easier, perhaps it should’ve been tweaked more. There are overall alot of tweaking to be done. It was a hasty project, done over a weekend. Regarding the getting stuck I just didnt feel it caused to big an issue, so it wasn’t prioritized, but will absolutely fix if I end up working on it further.
\n"},{"at":411191631,"author":"Anthony Cosgrave","login":"anthonycosgrave","gh":1410114,"url":"https://imtoospexy.com/","text":"The animation of the cat is great, the idle tail movement is a great touch. I am absolutely dreadful at games with wall jumping but this was still fun!
\n","games":["Chickpocalypse Meow"]},{"typ":2,"at":411298095,"author":"Victor Debone","login":"debone","gh":763457,"url":"https://javascri.pl/","twitter":"javascripl","text":"Hello! Thanks for your submission to js13k!\nI’m not aware of how much time you spent on your game, so excuse me if things I mention were in your mind, but got left out in the rush of the month or just because you hit the 13kb limit :)
\nI’m so sorry. It sounds like you had a horrid time playing the game. I’ve realized that the game was a bit to tough for a game jam and I’m beginning to think no one will make it to the attic at all . I also only spent a weekend on it and then a week reducing the size to the limit so there are alot of things that could be improved or added. The pause at the beginning after you died is actually something added after a friend tried the game and thought it was needed because he kept falling of the platform when he respawned. But it still ended up a bit weird so that could be done better. Anyway, sorry again for the hour you lost and the frustration it caused you.
\n"}],"results":{"theme":{"rank":85,"min":1,"score":3.14,"max":4.24},"innovation":{"rank":151,"min":1.2,"score":2.18,"max":4.03},"gameplay":{"rank":73,"min":1.18,"score":2.91,"max":4.37},"graphics":{"rank":125,"min":1.6,"score":2.68,"max":4.56},"controls":{"rank":134,"min":1.6,"score":2.73,"max":4.45},"primary":{"rank":141,"min":8.68,"score":13.64,"max":24.89},"label":"Overall"}}