{"id":2417,"edition":13,"categories":3,"features":0,"size":8893,"name":"Heimao","authors":[{"name":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314}],"description":"

Heimao is a charming puzzle adventure game where you play as a cat on a quest to collect delicious fish and find your\nfeline friends. This game was created for the Js13k 2025 competition. Navigate through a series of levels, solve puzzles,\nand uncover secrets to complete your adventure.

\n

Features

\n

Explore a colorful world: A series of unique levels with different challenges.\nCollectibles: Gather fish to increase your score and find special items to unlock new paths.\nSimple controls: Easy-to-learn controls for a smooth gaming experience.\nCharming pixel art: Enjoy a cute and nostalgic aesthetic.

\n

Controls

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Movement: Use the arrow keys (Up, Down, Left, Right) or the W, A, S, D keys to move your cat.\nInteracting: Press the Enter key or tap the screen to interact with certain objects.

\n

Objective

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Your goal is to complete the levels by collecting all the required items, such as the red, green, and blue cats, and a\ncertain number of fish. The game challenges you to finish as fast as you can!

\n

Game mechanics

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Coins: Collect coins to increase your score.\nLight Bulbs: Collecting all the light bulbs may reveal new paths.\nDoors: Doors can be opened by finding the correct key or trigger.\nCats: Finding all the colored cats (red, green, blue) is a key objective.\nTimers: Some game events are tied to timers, which may reveal new paths or make things disappear.

\n

Technical details

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This game is built entirely using vanilla HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, making it lightweight and easy to run in any modern web browser.

\n","source":"kennyfully881230/heimao_js13k_2025","stars":1,"comments":[{"at":410343813,"author":"Emre Guneyler","login":"eguneys","gh":3844764,"url":"https://eguneys.github.io/jsgames/","text":"

The game’s visuals are a real highlight—they’re bright and engaging. The core gameplay is also very fun. However, the controls are currently a major issue. The character gets stuck when changing directions and requires a pause, which feels awkward. There also needs to be a reset button, as it’s possible to get permanently stuck, forcing the player to refresh the page. Despite these issues, the experience was compelling enough for me to see it through to a win.

\n

PS: Please discard if you have explained extra controls in your description as I haven’t read it.

\n","games":["Mor Chess 2","Mor Chess"]},{"typ":1,"at":410400784,"re":410343813,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

You’re right! I initially coded for the virtual dpad and put in the keyboard bindings as a last minute afterthought. I think I should has heavily tested out the keyboard before shipping but I was racing against time at that point.

\n

Anyway, that’s a good idea to have some kind of reset button on the puzzles to prevent the player from getting stuck. The only problem is that I need to think more creatively how to allow the player to regain lives that it lost from failing a puzzle. Maybe I’ll make a NPC (non playable cat) that takes coins in exchange for replinishing lives (and clearing the previous bodies in a puzzle).

\n"},{"at":410352906,"author":"Alexander Petrov","login":"baturinsky","gh":632779,"twitter":"baturinsky","text":"

Nice, some Alley Cat vibes, difficuly and length just right for the format.

\n

Only flaw is the controls. Looks like you do not take account that frame rate may be different from player to player, so the cat is too fast on 120/144 fps.

\n","games":["All you have to do is Dream"]},{"typ":1,"at":410401005,"re":410352906,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

When you say more precise controls, are you talking about the keyboard controls or the virtual controls? Because they are very different event handlers.

\n

In game tips are important. I’ll work on that. Thank you.

\n"},{"at":410379078,"author":"Alexander Fredstie ","login":"alex-irt","gh":5434285,"twitter":"summontoast","text":"

This was nostalgic and sweet, I enyoyed the nine lives being a resource to clear the levels to be used tactically.

\n","games":["Color Cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":410400117,"re":410379078,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you very much! I appreciate you playing the game and figuring out the reason why the black cat leaves it’s former body behind.

\n"},{"at":410388773,"author":"Lucas Werle Melz","login":"lucasmelz","gh":75343742,"url":"https://lucasmelz.github.io/portfolio/","text":"

Interesting game and nice work with the sprites. I couldn’t understand much of the objectives of the game though. When trying to “collect” lightbulbs, I’d always die. The dead body then would remain as an obstacle in the scenario (was this intended?). The light bulbs are switching to ‘on’ and ‘off’ quite fast: I tried to pass through their path when they were off and on but I’d always die regardless. Great effort though and nice aesthetics.

\n","games":["Stray Cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":410399996,"re":410388773,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Yes the dead bodies are supposed to be a way to block the light beam that is coming from the lightbulbs. And unfortunately, I just realized I sent the rough draft text of my game instead of the current version where lightbulbs aren’t good at all. Lol I apologize for the wrong info.

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Thank you very much for play my game!

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It’s a mess but I hope you can see I was trying to make a combination of find the kittys + mini puzzles in each room.

\n"},{"at":410403260,"author":"Mohammed Saud","login":"rottencandy","gh":20013884,"url":"saud.wtf","twitter":"rotttencandy","text":"

I really like the cute pixel art style, colorful but not overwhelming. I noticed that when I collect the fish it instantly transports me back to the main area, and I have to navigate all the way back to the room if I wanted to collect other stuff. I still finished the game, liked it.

\n","games":["Non-Mewtonian Cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":410408244,"re":410403260,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you for playing my game. Yea, I should had made that clear in like a tutorial or something. I’lll work on that later.

\n"},{"at":410425341,"author":"Christoph Schansky","login":"DerBenniBanni","gh":5499976,"text":"

I like the pixel-graphics and the idea with the 9 lives an the bodies of the former cats blocking the light beams.

\n

Sometime I had to walk to blocks to solve a level, but there was not even a clue that said blocks are not blocking me. That felt a bit awkward.\nOverall: good job!

\n","games":["Miami Mice"]},{"typ":1,"at":410492985,"re":410425341,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you very much for playing my game! I appreciate your review. In a future update, I will do a better job on making sure to let players know the objective of the game and what to expect in game.

\n"},{"at":410441890,"author":"qufakuz","login":"qufakuz","gh":157382081,"text":"

Very well game, nice pixel art dan overall I love it

\n","games":["Cat and Spikes"]},{"typ":1,"at":410492826,"re":410441890,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

I appreciate your kindness! I probably worked harder on the pixel art than anything else. lol. Thank you for playing my game!

\n"},{"at":410459962,"author":"Homer Dilpleu","login":"HomerDilpleu","gh":66157330,"text":"

The concept of non linear level progression (level 1, then level 2,…) is interesting and I liked the pixel art. I was able to collect items and to navigate between the levels, but I think I missed the real objective of the game. I had fun to play, well done!

\n","games":["Wash the cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":410492680,"re":410459962,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you for playing my game! Honestly, if you missed the real objective of the game, which is to either save the cats or eat the fish in every level, then it’s my fault for not making that clear (which I will do in the next update). I’m very glad you have fun.

\n"},{"at":410479921,"author":"LuoPeiran","login":"halfTree-dev","gh":49297000,"url":"https://half_tree.gitee.io/","text":"

This game has a decent polish level with great pixel art, which has the potential to be a great title in its genre. However, in my view, its gameplay still lacks refinement: each level is too small and can be cleared with simple movement alone, making individual stages feel unrewarding to play. The only obstacle in levels is laser beams, but their design is flawed—the lasers flash too rapidly, making it impossible to pass through without losing a life. Perhaps the developer intended for players to sacrifice a life by letting the cat die at the laser’s source to block it? Additionally, the controls feel clunky on desktop. I couldn’t move diagonally, and while moving in one direction, other directional keys were completely ignored—even after releasing the current key (Controls are better on mobile since the D-Pad is acceptable). Still, the cat’s corpse retains its hitbox after death, which can block paths that should be passable after a failed attempt, frustratingly causing me to get stuck.

\n","games":["Rin the Cat Sorceresses"]},{"typ":1,"at":410492536,"re":410479921,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

That’s a very honest and helpful review. The lazer beams are supposed to be acticve always. Maybe I did a bad job at showing that in the animation. The idea is that the cat is supposed to hit the lazer in order to block it upon death. I do agree that the dead cat hitboxes are a problem and needs to be worked out in a way where either the player can ignore that hitbox or the dead cat can be cleared in some way. I’m still thinking of what I’ll do about that. I have plans on making bigger levels in the next update. Controls for desktop will be reworked too. I appreciate you playing my game. My God bless you.

\n"},{"at":410581881,"author":"Himanshu Bisht","login":"igamerx","gh":44287861,"text":"

Your level design and game progression are very interesting. I enjoyed the puzzles and cute pixel graphics, it’s a nice entry, congrats.

\n","games":["The Ninefold Gambit"]},{"typ":1,"at":410684691,"re":410581881,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you for playing my game. I had fun making it. I wished that I did a better job at the concept, but I’m happy that I’ve learned so much during this game jam.

\n"},{"at":410635243,"author":"xem","login":"xem","gh":1225909,"text":"

Very cute graphics, charming world and puzzles. Only misses a bit of sound.

\n","games":["I got up on the wrong foot"]},{"typ":1,"at":410684595,"re":410635243,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you very much for playing my game! Sound is pretty important. I’ll work harder on getting sound in for whatever game I make next year.

\n"},{"at":410641419,"author":"Anthony Cosgrave","login":"anthonycosgrave","gh":1410114,"url":"https://imtoospexy.com/","text":"

I liked the visual style of this game. It took a while to get to grips with how to play it properly but I enjoyed trying to figure out the puzzles. Even the addition of a short bit of audio when collecting fish or the coins and on dying would work really well.

\n","games":["Chickpocalypse Meow"]},{"typ":1,"at":410684637,"re":410641419,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you for your kindness! Thank you for playing my game! I’ll work in the audio in a polished version.

\n"},{"at":410731197,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Nice presentation and concept. The controls where a little hard and I felt I was blocked at the end.

\n

I loved the art style and the use of multiple cats.

\n

Nice work

\n","games":["Pacific Black Cats"]},{"typ":1,"at":410751729,"re":410731197,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you very much for playing my game! Yea, I definitely need to rework the keyboard controls and polish up the game in a future update!

\n"},{"at":410781455,"author":"Elias Ku","login":"eliasku","gh":3038174,"url":"https://eliasku.win","twitter":"eliaskuvoice","text":"

Such an original puzzle game with an adorable kitty and yummy treats! It would be absolutely perfect with some music. Thanks for the game

\n","games":["Cat Survivors"]},{"typ":1,"at":410796628,"re":410781455,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you very much for playing my game! I’ll try to add some music and / or sounds when I can!

\n"},{"at":410943357,"author":"João Lopes","login":"lopis","gh":2715751,"url":"www.jlopes.dev","text":"

Really nice entry with lots of potential. The game features a variety of puzzles. They are quite simple, but include some typical mechanics like multiple lives, which fits great in the cat theme.\nThe controls were a bit stiff. Pressing multiple arrow keys at once doesn’t work as expected. Also, in this sort of game, I would also expect the movement to snap to the grid\nThe design is great, but a few animations and transitions would bring this game to the next level.

\n","games":["Meow Mountain"]},{"typ":1,"at":410961462,"re":410943357,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you very much for playing my game! Yeah it seems like more than anything I should make sure the keyboard controls are fixed asap. The snapping to grid would be cool, but I think more as a design choice I planned on making some levels more than just something very griddy… but ran out of time. Yeah, tansitions, sounds, in game explinations etc is definately on my list of things to work on for a polished update.

\n"},{"at":410972458,"author":"smhaaker","login":"smhaaker","gh":10542292,"text":"

A cute game with nice graphics and potential for sure. I like puzzle games! I found the controls a tiny bit clunky and the collision a bit confusing but overall I liked it! Good job!

\n","games":["CatNFish"]},{"typ":1,"at":411140916,"re":410972458,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you very much for playing my game! I’ll need to fix all those issues in the future!

\n"},{"at":410998592,"author":"skyatmoon","login":"skyatmoon","gh":53244544,"text":"

Cute cat just want to find true way! 1st time I think it looks like the Protal, collision a bit confusing, I can use my lives close all laser. No songs but still plays well.

\n","games":["A Hungry Black"]},{"typ":1,"at":411141008,"re":410998592,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

I appreciate you playing my game! It’s true, I tried my best to make cat lives more useful. I’ll try to make collisions more understandable later.

\n"},{"at":411027733,"author":"nihdao","login":"Nihdao","gh":74270287,"url":"adamalet.fr","text":"

Hey, pretty cool concept, well done!

\n","games":["Clicker Pawry"]},{"typ":1,"at":411141053,"re":411027733,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

I really appreciate your kindness! I’ll keep working hard to make it high quality.

\n"},{"typ":2,"at":411111197,"author":"Ania Kubów","login":"kubowania","gh":51362610,"url":"javascriptgames.online","twitter":"ania_kubow","text":"

I can see in the instructions that you write it is possible to use the arrow keys. However, in my experience using a Mac with Chrome , I was not able to do that and had to reply on the arrows visually represented on screen. This made the experience a but janky. Perhaps it is a bug? THE WASD keys worked fine however. It would be great to experience this game as it was intended.

\n

Apart from that i like the retro graphics and animations.

\n

Puzzles are always appreciated by me as they require a lot of planing and thought - so well done on this.

\n

It would be wonderful to see some music added as well to compliment the game play.

\n

Super cute entry overall - nice one!

\n"},{"typ":1,"at":411141587,"re":411111197,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Ania! First of all, thank you very much for playing my game! I watched your game dev videos a lot before so seeing you play one of my games is like a dream come true! May God bless you! Anyway, I had a ton of fun making the game! I tried to work out a complicated idea that I had in my head and it seemed to turn into something decent. Haha

\n

Unfortunately, I jumped into the game jam 1 week before the deadline. This is not an excuse but I failed to proofread my original game instructions and update to what I had in the current version for controls etc. Definitely a lesson learned to double check everything in the next game jam.

\n

I’ll work on adding music 🎶 to this game along with a list of things to do.

\n"},{"at":411155889,"author":"John Edvard","login":"johnedvard","gh":656024,"url":"https://reitgames.com","twitter":"ReitGames","text":"

Cute graphics, which are also cohesive. Reminds me of the game boy. I’m not sure if I won, but I was able to collect 9 fish, and some bonus cats? With some additional feedback such as sounds, it could be easier to understand if we are doing the right thing or not. Being able to progress the game by collecting coins is a good game design element. The controls were a bit difficult to use when we’re restricted to a grid when hitting obstacles. Maybe a grid based movement would work better for the game? (I also like the logo which says Black Cat: 黒猫)

\n","games":["Triska the Ninja Cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":411175830,"re":411155889,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you very much for playing my game! May God bless you! Yes my original idea was for the player to win if they ate every fish in every level or saved all the cats. Those would had made 2 different endings but I ran out of time so I made a genetic YOU WIN scene. I should rework the controls so that users can move diagonal too. Actually I want the users to freely move in any direction. Must work on sounds too. Lmao.

\n

The fact that you understood the title 黒猫 meant Black Cat makes me happy. To be honest most games I make will either have some linguistic references to Mandarin or Japanese (in this case can double for both languages).

\n"},{"at":411169081,"author":"Noumisyifa Nabila","login":"numshv","gh":149067096,"twitter":"numshv","text":"

Cute graphics! But i think the arrow keys unfortunately didn’t work, also, i think it’s more intuitive if you’ll die when the yellow light is flashing instead of the white one. That aside cute concept!

\n","games":["Clawstruck"]},{"typ":1,"at":411176326,"re":411169081,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

I appreciate you playing my game! May God bless! I’m sorry about the arrow keys not working and that’s because I forgot to work in the arrow keys. Also, I forgot to update my game play description about it. I should had better explained somewhere that the black cat is so scared of direct light that it dies upon contact, but it’s good to know that yellow light seems more dangerous than white light. I’ll keep that in mind when updating the game data.

\n

Thank you for saying the game is cute! I worked very hard on the artwork.

\n"},{"at":411268587,"author":"Jasper Renow-Clarke","login":"picosonic","gh":26137750,"twitter":"femtosonic","text":"

Really fun little game

\n

The pixel art was good

\n

I liked all the levels and puzzles

\n

The way the lightbulbs worked and the appearing blocked paths made for a fun dynamic

\n

As somebody else said only WASD worked, the arrow keys didn’t

\n","games":["Mochi and the midnight escape"]},{"typ":1,"at":411273505,"re":411268587,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you very much for playing my game! I really need to make keyboard controls work as intended. Thanks for the reminder.

\n"},{"at":411412912,"author":"Tiago Correia","login":"dosaki","gh":1957450,"url":"https://dosaki.net/","text":"

I loved how you used the corpses of the cat to block the light.\nClever mechanic.

\n

I wish it had some sound, but the graphics and the animations were really well done.

\n

One problem I had on mobile was I’d accidentally get into levels due to then being too close to each other.

\n","games":["Black Cat's Herbs & Brews"]},{"typ":1,"at":411718567,"re":411412912,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Thank you very much for playing my game! I agee. I should had either made the level collision boxes smaller or gave the player an option to confirm entering the level. Sounds are also useful in games like this. Actually I’m considering redoing the entire thing for an update because I want to use WebGL2. lol

\n"},{"typ":2,"at":411804054,"author":"Jedidiah Weller","login":"jedihacks","gh":996175,"url":"www.openforge.io","twitter":"jedihacks","text":"

Hey there,

\n

I really enjoyed this game - great work! The pixel art was good and I liked the addition of simply animations to keep the user engaged.

\n

The dead body mechanic was cool and unique.

\n

I recorded a video review for all the games here so that you can see my initial reaction while playing, which is often quite helpful from a user experience perspective. https://www.youtube.com/live/jl6pC4OnVJA?si=hadQmN9JZB93hDUM

\n

Good luck in the competition and good job!

\n"},{"typ":1,"at":411966243,"re":411804054,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

I just watched the live steam and goodness you seemed like you were having so much fun! lol

\n

Anyway, I appreciate you making your live stream because it was exciting to see someone play a game that I put effort into making. Also, it helped me better understand some of the flaws that I had in my entry, such as the control issuse and the fact that my explination about the game was too long.

\n

In the future I plan to try to make my games easy to understand with the least amount of text and have smooth controls.

\n

Once again, thank you for playing my game! May God bless you!

\n"},{"at":411869541,"author":"smiley405","login":"smiley405","gh":66162073,"url":"https://rlimbu.com/","text":"

It was challenging, but I loved the puzzle, it kept me playing until the end, and I managed to unlock all the levels and win the game!
\nI really liked the mechanic where you can sacrifice yourself in the laser to collect coins.
\nI think you could’ve squeezed in a few sound effects or a music with the 4KB you had left in the tank.
\nReally enjoyed playing it!

\n","games":["Biralo"]},{"typ":1,"at":411966374,"re":411869541,"author":"F肯尼","login":"kennyfully881230","gh":208875314,"text":"

Oh! Wow I’m shocked that someone who made a game as awesome as you even took time to play my game! For sure, I’ll work on having sounds in my games from now on and I’ll try to make the game play more clear with better overylays in future games!

\n

Thank you for playing my game and may God bless you!

\n"}],"results":{"theme":{"rank":37,"min":1,"score":3.54,"max":4.24},"innovation":{"rank":44,"min":1.2,"score":3.2,"max":4.03},"gameplay":{"rank":64,"min":1.18,"score":2.97,"max":4.37},"graphics":{"rank":59,"min":1.6,"score":3.4,"max":4.56},"controls":{"rank":139,"min":1.6,"score":2.69,"max":4.45},"primary":{"rank":102,"min":8.68,"score":15.8,"max":24.89},"label":"Overall"}}