{"id":2368,"edition":13,"categories":3,"features":1,"size":13271,"name":"BlackCat_Hacker","authors":[{"name":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398}],"description":"

BlackCat_Hacker is a mini anti-stealth platformer where you play as Script, an aspiring hacker trying to become the best the world has ever seen.

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Only problem is… shes a cat and can only use the computer when her owner doesn’t know shes there.

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Guide Script to the computer and ship as much maliciou code as you can before the work day is over, (good hackers don’ work unpaid overtime) or you are caught using the computer by your owner!

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Controls

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Movement

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LEFT   and RIGHT arrow key to move \nUP arrow key to jump on the shelves\n
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Other Interactions

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  Press SPACE to meow and push coffee cups\n  Spam any letter on the keyboard to code\n
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How to play

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Platform your way in front of the computer, then spam all the letter keys on you keyboard with your paws to commit as much malicious code as you can before your owner comes back!

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When your owner is at the computer not only can Script not use it, but her owner will also start undoing her hard work, Luckily hes a filthy casual vibe coder and hes quite slow. Script can speed things up by knocking his leftover coffee cups off shelves and onto the ground to distract them and get back on keys, by knocking the cups around with SPACE

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Rules of the Game:

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BlackCat_Hacker is split into seven rounds, each representing one work day. Your goal is to try to ship as much code each day and fill your git graph (it makes potential employers compliment your resume before they reject you).

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At the end of seven days you will be ranked on your hacking ability based on how many lines of malicious code you shipped!

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Your goal is to aim to ship 1000 lines of code a day or more and claim the coveted Master black cat hacker fedora!

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FAQ

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What IDE does Script use?

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shes a big fan of neovim however her owner is a vibe coder and uses intellij with every copilot and cursor extension installed, but Script makes it work.\n
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Is Script an ethical hacker?

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for legal reasons we have chosen not to comment\n
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Can cats drink coffee?

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cats can have little a coffee, as a treat.\n
\n","source":"Beanminchild/BlackCat_Hacker","stars":2,"post":"https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/jsk13-2025-game-jam-blackcat-hacker-post-mortem-zachary-end-f9m2c","comments":[{"at":410573302,"author":"xem","login":"xem","gh":1225909,"text":"

Love the emoji graphics, audio and original concept, congrats

\n","games":["I got up on the wrong foot"]},{"typ":1,"at":410585236,"re":410573302,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

Thank you so much for taking the time to play my game!

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I was quite proud of the emojis as assets as a space saving measure and i also like it because it mimics the type of computer the users is actually using to play the game.

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Also really happy you like the audio I put a lot of effort into creating fun dynamic songs and sounds that are pleasant to listen to while you play. Fun fact almost every sound and or song in the game has references to or is a reference to another game that I really like.

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Play again see if you recognize anything ;)

\n"},{"at":410581823,"author":"Anthony Cosgrave","login":"anthonycosgrave","gh":1410114,"url":"https://imtoospexy.com/","text":"

This is an interesting idea for a game. I played long enough to unlock the “Emmie” cat.

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During the game I accidentally clicked the “Tutorial” button at one point instead of “Start Game”, it is not obvious that “Clear Gitgraph” means “wipe your progress” and that you are actually meant to click the green and white close icon to return to the menu

\n","games":["Chickpocalypse Meow"]},{"typ":1,"at":410585021,"re":410581823,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

Good Point. That button was mostly for me testing the game and probably shouldn’t have been put in the tutorial menu. Thanks for playing my game though! Theres more cat customization to unlock if you want to try and up your score :)

\n"},{"at":410589791,"author":"Jonathan Vallet","login":"jonathan-vallet","gh":5329099,"text":"

Very fun game, with an original and playful gameplay concept. I also liked how the lines of code were nicely drawn — it adds charm. Got 1061, Copy pasta cat :)

\n","games":["Witchcat"]},{"typ":1,"at":410592110,"re":410589791,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

Wooo you’re a pro! Thanks so much for playing and taking the time to rate. :)

\n"},{"at":410596339,"author":"Cliff Earl","login":"Antix-Development","gh":17822130,"text":"

Hey that’s cool. I’m now a cat coder!

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Interesting concept, and well executed.

\n","games":["Black Cat - Nine Lives, No Mercy"]},{"typ":1,"at":410697252,"re":410596339,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

Ayyyyyeee! Welcome to the cat coding club! glad you had a cool time! Thank you so much for playing :)

\n"},{"at":410779161,"author":"Zang0l0tino","login":"Zang0l0tino","gh":167128079,"text":"

Very original concept, I really likrd those lines of code; but I’m not sure if I would’ve mixed it with a platformer; but it’s a good game anyway, and the audio is pretty good too, good luck!

\n","games":["The Black Cat's Escape"]},{"typ":1,"at":410782359,"re":410779161,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

I love the lines of code too! I took so much time trying to get those right glad you enjoyed that detail. Thank you for giving my game a chance. Good luck to you as well!

\n"},{"at":410803673,"author":"smhaaker","login":"smhaaker","gh":10542292,"text":"

Hah this is original. I think the game adds the right level of intensity. Graphics were also very nice. Good job

\n","games":["CatNFish"]},{"typ":1,"at":410874631,"re":410803673,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

Aw thank you that means so much! Im not very good at art so the graphics were really an exercise in creation through limitation! Thank you so much for playing!

\n"},{"at":410849138,"author":"Jan Krupiński","login":"krupinskij","gh":50505013,"url":"https://github.com/krupinskij","text":"

Cool game, but needed some time to learn how to play it.

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And the score board on my computer is sometimes so big I’m not able to see “Play again” button.

\n","games":["Fishing"]},{"typ":1,"at":410872313,"re":410849138,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

Aw no that’s no fun! Im sorry to hear that. Not sure what happened I made a point to ensure the score board to scaled well on different displays! Oh well computers be dumb sometimes. I hope it didn’t ruin your experience too much.

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Thank you so much for taking the time to play my game nonetheless! I hope your next play through goes better :)

\n"},{"at":410878780,"author":"Andy Sommerville","login":"aksommerville","gh":1869768,"url":"http://aksommerville.com","text":"

Ha ha ha, this feels just like being a programmer’s cat!\nIt wasn’t until the very last day that I realized you can burn the human with coffee. That’s a nice touch!

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One thing I would change: I wish the menus were navigable with keyboard. It’s annoying to reach for the mouse between levels.

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Total Additions: 1696

\n","games":["Nine Lives"]},{"typ":1,"at":411033518,"re":410878780,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

So happy someone found the burn the owner mechanic haha! I tried my best to make this feel like youre a cat in a comical way so glad it clicked with you!

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Also yes 100 percent agree on it needing keyboard controls for the menus… I made all the menus when i decided to add mobile support last min so i think that fell through the cracks! Maybe that will make it into the directors cut if i get around to it.

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Thanks so much for playing!

\n"},{"typ":2,"at":411108101,"author":"Ania Kubów","login":"kubowania","gh":51362610,"url":"javascriptgames.online","twitter":"ania_kubow","text":"

I love the coder-centric little additions in this game. The git graph especially! A very unique game idea indeed! It would be great to see the game instructions somehow women into the game play. For example as simple pop ups as the cat moves, or even a practise level. Nice work!

\n"},{"typ":1,"at":411135963,"re":411108101,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

Yeah, I think if I could change only one thing, adding on screen button prompts would have been a huge quality of life improvement.

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I was kinda hoping the fumbling around with the controls initially would add to the idea of you being a cat that is learning to code and make people want to replay a few times to get better, but in practice it seems to just be a friction point. Especially for a game a lot of people are just hopping in for a single round.

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Anyways, Im really happy you liked my gitgraph game scoreboard. That is an element I thought was kinda clever when I thought of it so glad its getting some love. :)

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Thank you so very much for taking time to play my humble coding cat game!

\n"},{"at":411211662,"author":"Elias Ku","login":"eliasku","gh":3038174,"url":"https://eliasku.win","twitter":"eliaskuvoice","text":"

Brilliant idea! The controls are smooth, and I love the game’s humor—swapping places with your pet so your goal isn’t to commit code, but to stop them from committing it 😄

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Great job!

\n","games":["Cat Survivors"]},{"typ":1,"at":411358644,"re":411211662,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

AWWW thank you so much! Im glad someone appreciates the little jokes and humor I threw in I wanted it to be at least kinda funny!

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Thank you so much for taking the time to enjoy my game!

\n"},{"at":411322755,"author":"João Lopes","login":"lopis","gh":2715751,"url":"www.jlopes.dev","text":"

Quirky little game that reminds me of the broom level of Alley Cat. Fun and challenging. I like that you incorporated different cat behaviors into the game, like jumping around the room, leaving paw prints everywhere, getting pets, and of course wanting to always sit on our laptop.

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Moving around is a little rough on the edges, as the cat kinda snaps onto the platform. In some of the random levels it was impossible to jump to the coffees as they were too high. It would be nice to understand the game without having to read the instructions (the “tutorial”). The game is quite simple, so that should be possible.

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The game looks a bit odd on mobile.

\n","games":["Meow Mountain"]},{"typ":1,"at":411358548,"re":411322755,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

I just played alley cat and yeah they basically have a mini version of this game in theirs! wish I had the art and animation skills of that person!

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I see your critiques the snapping is intentional just to make it so if your slightly too low for a platform you can still make it and there’s even some easter eggs and special tricks you can do with this move to get away from the hands!

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Also you can get to the higher platforms you just need to unlock legally distinct louigy to get higher jumps but I may have made that too much of a burried mechanic for this game jam…. I think for next time I need to optimize much more for people jumping in playing one round and leaving.

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Anyways all valid critiques and things I’ll look into for the directors cut!

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Thank you so much for taking the time to play my game :)

\n"},{"at":411413462,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

I didn’t get much feedback in the game that I was doing the right thing. I guess from the name, I had to go to the computer and do some stuff. After reading the description, I saw that that twas indeed the objective but with a little positive feedback, the description wouldn’t have been needed in the first place.

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Regardless, it’s very thematic and pretty fun.

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I’m going to have another go now 😁

\n","games":["Black Cat's Herbs & Brews"]},{"typ":1,"at":411531698,"re":411413462,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

This is yet another sign for me that next time tutorial needs to be incorporated into game-play. I hope you had a nice time once you figured it out!

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Thanks for playing and reviewing! Really appreciate it :)

\n"},{"typ":2,"at":411469780,"author":"Emanuele Feronato","login":"triqui","gh":389551,"text":"

Brilliant idea, but the various sprites seem to be taken here and there from the web, there isn’t that much consistency.

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Good job anyway.

\n"},{"typ":1,"at":411531773,"re":411469780,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

Theyre Emojis! I used them to save space and also I thought it would be a unique way to do assets that would make the computer match the computer the user was using (roughly) as different OS have different emojis to match their particular brand.

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Thanks for playing!

\n"},{"at":411819576,"author":"Jasper Renow-Clarke","login":"picosonic","gh":26137750,"twitter":"femtosonic","text":"

Funny game, interesting concept

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I liked the graphics, and the way the cat moved

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The music was good, which added to the suspense

\n","games":["Mochi and the midnight escape"]},{"typ":1,"at":412001038,"re":411819576,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

Thank you so much for playing, glad you liked it! I’m happy to hear you thought the music added to the experience for you I tried my best to make it fitting :)

\n"},{"at":411844612,"author":"Christoph Schansky","login":"DerBenniBanni","gh":5499976,"text":"

That “hacking” as cat is soooo much fun! :-)

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The jump&run-part could use some fine-tuning, but hacking is prefect. it even has text-particle-effects.

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Fun game!

\n","games":["Miami Mice"]},{"typ":1,"at":411909667,"re":411844612,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

I’m glad you had fun! Its nice to see how much the ‘hacking’ resonates with people I was afraid it wasn’t going to be as fun or cute to people as i thought it was.

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Also you inspired me to include a little story in my game last minutes so thanks for that idea! I wish I had time for cut scenes but maybe next year :)

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Thank you so much for playing!!!

\n"},{"at":411889928,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"

Hilarious concept and I loved all the coding jokes with the Git commits, the JS code being typed, etc. Very cool effect there with the lines of code disappearing as you type! Script is super cute, too!

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Good job on also including some music and matching sound effects, they sound great!

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At first I didn’t get what I was supposed to do, so I think some in-game way of explaining things would’ve been nice but it was great fun once I got into it. Also, I didn’t even notice the commit tracker initially in the corner because it was off-canvas.

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The difficulty seems uneven because of the random nature of the levels, sometimes I would get 3 cups of coffee and very easy jumps on the platforms but sometimes no coffee and hard jumps - I think sometimes the jumps to the highest platforms were literally impossible. Not necessarily an issue though if you want to have a “luck” element in the game.

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I wish you could navigate the menus with the keyboard as well, a bit uncomfortable having to switch to the mouse and back. Love the mechanic of just mashing the keys though to type!

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Also, I have no idea how you could get in 1000 lines per day, I didn’t manage anything near that amount, even though I was trying to use all the coffee and type while being chased for the multiplier. I might be missing something.

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Maybe some animations would’ve been nice, e.g. cat walking / jumping, etc. but not sure how feasible that would be with the size limit. However, really cool and stylish idea to represent the owner with just footsteps, hands, etc! I thought that was a really great way to cut back on complexity while also adding a great charming character to the game. I also liked that you really leaned into using emojis that are vendor-specific everywhere so everyone would see something familiar on their respective platforms. Usually games want to look the exact same everywhere so it’s an interesting idea to have a custom experience instead.

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Great entry overall, I had a lot of fun with it! Well done!

\n","games":["A Voiding Your Problems"]},{"typ":1,"at":411916672,"re":411889928,"author":"Zach","login":"Beanminchild","gh":199300398,"text":"

OH WOW !

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Thanks so much for such a detailed and thoughtful review This is awesome.\nI’m so appreciative that you took the time to dig into my game and write this.

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Lot of good incites and feedback. Ill be sure to look into for the directors cut.\nAs for the animations, they’re not one of my strong suites but that’s a skill I’m hoping to level up for next year! :)

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Glad you enjoyed my game and thank you oh so very much for playing!

\n"}],"results":{"theme":{"rank":14,"min":1,"score":3.78,"max":4.24},"innovation":{"rank":32,"min":1.2,"score":3.39,"max":4.03},"gameplay":{"rank":58,"min":1.18,"score":3.09,"max":4.37},"graphics":{"rank":93,"min":1.6,"score":2.96,"max":4.56},"audio":{"rank":49,"min":1.75,"score":3.17,"max":4.22},"controls":{"rank":84,"min":1.6,"score":3.11,"max":4.45},"primary":{"rank":44,"min":8.68,"score":19.5,"max":24.89},"label":"Overall"}}