Midnight’s Journey is a minimalist, 3D Sokoban-inspired puzzle game where you guide a magical black cat through a series of floating worlds. Your mission is to collect scattered stars in each level by pushing glowing star boxes onto the targets. As you travel deeper into the night sky, the puzzles become more challenging, testing both your strategy and patience!
\nControls\n•\tWASD or Arrow Keys - Move the cat\n•\tMouse - Rotate camera view\n•\tMouse Wheel - Zoom in/out\n•\tRight-click + Drag - Pan camera
\n","source":"msellers77/js13k2025-midnights-journey","stars":1,"comments":[{"at":410378804,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"Nice presentation, but I felt the 3D was working against the game more than enhacing it, if you rotate the camera then you play with the controls rotated, which is annoying.
\n","games":["Pacific Black Cats"]},{"typ":1,"at":410656690,"re":410378804,"author":"msellers77","login":"msellers77","gh":12138799,"text":"Thank you for the constructive feedback. Regarding the camera control issue - you’re right that rotating the view and then having controls that don’t match the perspective is a bit frustrating to play. I should have locked the camera to prevent those issues. Regarding the 3D presentation, I think I focused too much on the aesthetics, but should have spent some more time with game mechanics. I appreciate you taking the time to play my game and provide specific feedback.
\n"},{"at":410575260,"author":"xem","login":"xem","gh":1225909,"text":"Amazing graphics, audio, level design. While pleasing visually and technically, I’m not sure the 3D is really useful.
\n","games":["I got up on the wrong foot"]},{"typ":1,"at":410656021,"re":410575260,"author":"msellers77","login":"msellers77","gh":12138799,"text":"Thank you for the constructive feedback. Regarding the camera control issue - I can see how rotating the view and then having controls that don’t match the perspective would be frustrating to play. I should have locked the camera to prevent those issues. Regarding the 3D presentation, the choice was partly aesthetic and partly a technical challenge that I wanted to tackle within the size constraints. I probably should have spent more time on the gameplay and puzzle mechanics that could have been enhanced using 3D. I appreciate you taking the time to play and provide specific feedback - it helps me understand what works and what doesn’t from a player perspective.
\n"},{"at":410687721,"author":"Francesco Bedussi","login":"fbedussi","gh":9413715,"url":"http://www.francescobedussi.it","text":"Impressive graphics, nice interpretation of a classical game. As others already said the 3d perspective make it tricky to move the cat.
\n","games":["Superstition: The Black Cat Game"]},{"at":410738065,"author":"Cliff Earl","login":"Antix-Development","gh":17822130,"text":"Great 3D. It think if when you panned the game map, if the background stars rotated in 3D it would be really cool.
\n","games":["Black Cat - Nine Lives, No Mercy"]},{"at":410784571,"author":"Elias Ku","login":"eliasku","gh":3038174,"url":"https://eliasku.win","twitter":"eliaskuvoice","text":"Really cool 3D implementation in a puzzle game!\nI’d suggest adding the R key for restarting the level, along with some background music and environmental effects (someone already mentioned a 3D starry sky - that would be awesome!). Victory sound effects would also add a nice touch.
\nI think I’m only getting 1 out of 3 stars because I’m using more moves than necessary, right?\nAlso, in my opinion, the difficulty spikes pretty sharply on the second level.
\nThat said, the game feels well-made and polished. Great job! 👏
\n","games":["Cat Survivors"]},{"typ":1,"at":410826137,"re":410784571,"author":"msellers77","login":"msellers77","gh":12138799,"text":"Thank you for the feedback. Yes, the levels are designed to reward players who solve puzzles without using a hint and the least amount of moves.
\n"},{"at":410819342,"author":"Anthony Cosgrave","login":"anthonycosgrave","gh":1410114,"url":"https://imtoospexy.com/","text":"This looks great visually, it reminds me of lots of those great 3D puzzle games in its presentation. But I found it very difficult to control. While I understand it is a puzzle game, trying to figure out how to move after changing the camera position was not what I was expecting.
\n","games":["Chickpocalypse Meow"]},{"at":410859565,"author":"Christoph Schansky","login":"DerBenniBanni","gh":5499976,"text":"Very polished 3d graphics!
\nWhen the view is rotated, the Arrow-Keys keep their rotation. Maybe show where “UP” is on the board, or rotate the directions like the camera-angle?
\nI think it would look better, if the cat would not jump from one field to the next but slide (quickly, only about 0.2 or 0.2 seconds) to it.
\nOtherwise, a very solid sokoban-like, good job!
\n","games":["Miami Mice"]},{"at":410912721,"author":"Gleb Volkov","login":"malec-palec","gh":2181873,"twitter":"volkov_ayyy","text":"I love the art style - it’s pure, clean, and visually really calming. The journey, mood, and ambiance pull you in. Sometimes the controls feel unpredictable, but the experience overall is so dreamy and immersive that I’m totally into it.
\n","games":["Catapoolt"]},{"at":411121352,"author":"Jasper Renow-Clarke","login":"picosonic","gh":26137750,"twitter":"femtosonic","text":"The game looks amazing, the 3D works well
\nThe graphics are very good, with lots of attention to detail
\nVery cool that you can spin the level around with the mouse and zoom with the wheel - it makes things a lot easier when there are trees covering the path
\nI played several levels, but wasn’t sure of my progress of the game as a whole
\nYou could maybe add click to navigate which the character could navigate there around obstacles
\nI’m not a fan of games which you mostly the keyboard to play then switch to the mouse for menus e.t.c. Maybe if you could navigate the menus whilst staying on the keyboard it would make it easier to play
\n","games":["Mochi and the midnight escape"]},{"at":411133086,"author":"Andy Sommerville","login":"aksommerville","gh":1869768,"url":"http://aksommerville.com","text":"Great take on Sokoban, these puzzles are satisfyingly difficult. I thought the 3d graphics were kind of overkill. I ended up rotating to a more-or-less orthographic top view immediately every single level.
\nIt would be nice if “next level” and “restart” didn’t require the mouse, since the game is otherwise played only with the keyboard.
\nAnd maybe too much scope, but an Undo feature would help a lot.
\n","games":["Nine Lives"]},{"typ":2,"at":411269290,"author":"Jupiter Hadley","login":"Jupiter-hadley","gh":97069389,"url":"www.jupiterhadley.com","twitter":"Jupiter_Hadley","text":"I think this is such a fun little puzzle game! I found it challenging to see the star - I wish they weren’t so light in color - and I also rotated the world and none of my movement made sense anymore. Otherwise, it does feel like the levels are well made and well designed.
\n\n"},{"at":411425431,"author":"IsleOfDann","login":"IsleOfDann","gh":232171537,"text":"Incredibly impressive given the restrictions that were in place, you didn’t hold back with the difficulty at all here, which is quite nice to see as it forces you to instantly engage with it.
\n"},{"at":411635188,"author":"Andrew Higson-Smith","login":"ElementalSystems","gh":4255763,"url":"www.elementalsystems.co.za","text":"Looks good - nice sukoban type puzzles - a bit hard for a beginner perhaps?
\n","games":["Wake the Cat"]},{"at":411706262,"author":"smiley405","login":"smiley405","gh":66162073,"url":"https://rlimbu.com/","text":"Really clean graphics, loved the camera controls and the puzzles! I couldn’t get past Crescent Cloud Level 1. Any tips on how to beat it?
\nJust a request, It would be great to have an ability to pull a block just once.
\nReally enjoyed playing!
Great graphics, except maybe for the turning animation.\nCould really use the mouse controls for movement.
\n","games":["All you have to do is Dream"]},{"at":411977660,"author":"Attila Horváth","login":"attilahorvath","gh":4081005,"text":"Very nicely polished graphics and good job releasing a game with 3D perspective!
\nI found it pretty hard straight from the start but I’m not good at Sokoban style games, so it might be just me. Many times I got just one star even though I thought I wasn’t making any extra unnecessary moves.
\nThe 3D projection sometimes made things harder than they should’ve been, it was difficult to see which direction to move in because of the dynamic camera angle. Maybe it could’ve been just a fixed camera or the directions could take the angle into account, like in a TPS game. Also, the trees, while nice decorations, sometimes blocked my view of the targets due to their heights.
\nI also find it uncomfortable that you can’t navigate the menus, hint, retry, etc. with the keyboard so you need to switch to the mouse back and forth.
\nVery nice job on the polish though, it’s presented really professionally!
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