{"id":2383,"edition":13,"categories":1,"features":1,"size":13311,"name":"Pacific Black Cats","authors":[{"name":"Javi Agenjo","url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515}],"description":"

During World War II, there was an Allied squadron of fighter planes in the Pacific known as the Black Cats.

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Their PBY Catalinas were painted black to blend into the night sky. Equipped with radar, capable of landing on the sea, and boasting long-range endurance, they are often considered the first stealth aircraft.

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The Black Cats carried out a wide variety of missions—ranging from rescuing downed pilots at sea to sinking enemy vessels at night with torpedoes.

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This game is a tribute to the courage and ingenuity of those pilots.

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Read more about Black Cats in wikipedia

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KEYS

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W/S = Pitch

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Q/E = Yaw

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A/D = Roll

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R/T = Engine throttle

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T = Fast forward time

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Z = Throw Torpedo

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C = Shoot guns

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1..9 = Change views

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M = Map

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N = Radar

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Right Mouse Button = Binoculars

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Enter = Change to next available PBY

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Tutorial

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There are three missions to accomplish:

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If you run out of fuel or ammo, fly back to the base and land near the tower, it will refill them automatically.

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Tips

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Use the scope view (Key 7) to aim better your torpedos.\nCareful with the fuel, if you run out you are lost.\nTo sink vessels, try to fly close to the sea, that way they cant shoot you, or wait until is dark.\nRemember to check the map and the radar.

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Comments

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I runned out of space too soon while making the game which meant I spent more time reducing the size than adding all the features I had in mind.

\n","source":"jagenjo/JS13K2025","stars":2,"dc":"https://tamats.com/games/blackcats/","yt":"GkOCBgFX2Pc","comments":[{"at":410421907,"author":"Rob Louie","login":"roblouie","gh":5448110,"url":"roblouie.com","twitter":"rob_louie","text":"

Amazing attention to detail at every level here. Reminds me of playing old flight sims on my computer in the 90s. Cool interpretation of the theme too.

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I think for a competition like this, making it a bit more sim-cade than sim would help people get into it more. As cool as all the camera views are, having so many is a bit overwhelming, and having some targeting system and lock-on would make it a little easier and rewarding, especially for the torpedos. Finally with a more complex game like this, I’d truly love controller support, as that would just feel so much nicer and more intuitive, especially with being able to have analog controls.

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Still, there’s no question this game is unbelievably impressive, as it truly does feel like an early commercial flight sim game. For people that are into those, this is a hugely rewarding experience.

\n","games":["Whiskers Witch Adventure"]},{"typ":1,"at":410473255,"re":410421907,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Thanks a lot for your reply, it means a lot, more coming from another crazy dev doing WebGL in 13KBs.

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As you said, I was inspired by the early 90s sim games from Microprose, Im still amazed what they could do in such a small size, so wanted to replicate their achievement.

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Totally agree with you, many features made sense in a broader game but in a casual game they are a little bit out of place. But this year has been painful as I runned out of space very soon and I couldnt finish many ideas.

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I will totally add gamepad support for the director´s cut, didnt think about it.

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Thanks again

\n"},{"at":410425513,"author":"Dmytro Kozhukhar","login":"dkozhukhar","gh":424523,"text":"

thats cool you’ve ported the whole air-sim into this. cool retro vibes.

\n","games":["Cat Shooter Ritual Catacombs"]},{"typ":1,"at":410482376,"re":410425513,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

thanks! yeah, I grew up playing Microprose flight sims and wanted to see how hard it would be to recreate that feeling.

\n"},{"at":410493424,"author":"Mohammed Saud","login":"rottencandy","gh":20013884,"url":"saud.wtf","twitter":"rotttencandy","text":"

This is very impressive for 13kb! I’m not into flight sims, but I was able to grasp the controls after some practice. The only thing I felt was that it gets quite hard to see in the dark, especially when trying to shoot the ships, not sure if that’s intended for realism. Also learnt a bit about aircraft history through this. Really nice.

\n","games":["Non-Mewtonian Cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":410496476,"re":410493424,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Hey Mohammed. Yeah, I wanted to show how hard it would had been for real pilots to attack in the darkness of the sea. But ultimately I added some special elements (like lights on the ships) to help spot them. In the Director´s Cut I also added the ships foam behind, which I read was helpful for real pilots too.

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Glad you found it useful :)

\n"},{"at":410494661,"author":"Jesper Rasmussen","login":"repsej","gh":116525,"text":"

Most impressive flight sim :)

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How is that even possible in 13k ?? - I’ll have to look at the code.

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ps. And what a fantastic theme :D Did you know of this squadron before the jam ?

\n","games":["Black Cat Squadron"]},{"typ":1,"at":410496364,"re":410494661,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Hey Jesper! I didnt know about them, I just searched for WW2 Black Cat thinking that there has to be something related to the WW2 with that name, thats how I found them. I didnt want to make a game with just a cat as player, as I felt everybody was going to go in that direction.

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I remember thinking - will I be the only one with this idea? - glad I wasnt the only one and also that your take was so fun :)

\n"},{"at":410575539,"author":"xem","login":"xem","gh":1225909,"text":"

Can’t believe all this game with 3D assets, sound, maps, cameras, fights, radar, etc fits in 13k!

\n","games":["I got up on the wrong foot"]},{"typ":1,"at":410586619,"re":410575539,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

and I was close to add online multiplayer, but It wasnt very nice so I decided to use these bytes to clean some stuff :)

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All if possible when your vars has single character names!

\n"},{"at":410592721,"author":"smhaaker","login":"smhaaker","gh":10542292,"text":"

This is really impressive. I am not a big flight sim player so there is a lot to grasp for me here. But very impressive.

\n","games":["CatNFish"]},{"typ":1,"at":410667969,"re":410592721,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Thanks, it was quite a challenge

\n"},{"at":410595615,"author":"Cliff Earl","login":"Antix-Development","gh":17822130,"text":"

Wow, nice 3D technology! I think this would be a fantastic game for flight sim enthusiasts, but I’m even worse at simulators than I am at puzzles.

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I hope you continue to develop and leverage your 3D engine for years to come :)

\n","games":["Black Cat - Nine Lives, No Mercy"]},{"typ":1,"at":410668028,"re":410595615,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Thanks!

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I´ve been improving my 3D engine at every 13K jam, but it reached a point where it is hard to reduce its size and it is still quite big (meaning I have to make the whole game with much less size than the rest of the entries), but thats the challenge!

\n"},{"at":410708916,"author":"John Edvard","login":"johnedvard","gh":656024,"url":"https://reitgames.com","twitter":"ReitGames","text":"

What a good execution of a flight simulator game. I love flying, and having so much control is amazing. I felt I was able to steer well, and I got scared of the marine ships fired back at me. I could feel the impact of the bullets, which was a good surprise. I was about to write that things are too far apart, but I see from the description that we can fast forward, and I truly appreciate that feature, and played the game a couple of more times. It takes some time to learn all the controls, but after learning all of it, playing this game was really fun. I wish I had more torpedoes!

\n","games":["Triska the Ninja Cat"]},{"typ":1,"at":410721899,"re":410708916,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Hey John, Thanks for your feedback!!\nI appreciate it a lot. The fast forward was important as I didnt want to bore the players flying in a world thats mostly empty.\nAbout more torpedos, you are right, but you can flight several planes at the same time! (I forgot to document that feature well), using F1-F4 you can change the plane, that means you can make several runs at the same time, just point the plane in the right direction and switch to another one.

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I plan to enhance the game in the director´s cut to have more missions and types of enemies. Hope you can try it.

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Cheers!

\n"},{"at":410735021,"author":"Mezriss","login":"Mezriss","gh":615453,"text":"

While brainstorming for the jam, a friend pitched me the idea of a game based on Black Cats. However, I dismissed it because I thought it would be impossible to implement in under 13 KB. I’m happy to see I was wrong! Flight sims like this is a bit too hardcore for me, and I just got lost at night, but I’m still very impressed.

\n","games":["Onamazu"]},{"typ":1,"at":410735984,"re":410735021,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Hey, I was too brave this year by tackling this idea, I knew from previous years that making 3D games with non-procedural content is very hard as you run out of space very fast, but I wanted to give it a try anyway, and the process was very tiresome as I was crossing the 13KBs line constantly (by adding clouds, or more islands, or different enemies) so Im glad that I managed to create someething that looks like a Flightsim but Im still far from what I wanted to create.

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Anyway, thanks for your comment :)

\n"},{"at":410788595,"author":"Elias Ku","login":"eliasku","gh":3038174,"url":"https://eliasku.win","twitter":"eliaskuvoice","text":"

Really cool implementation with smooth controls - it genuinely feels like a great airplane simulator!\nIt would be awesome with gamepad support and some epic music in the background.\nGreat job! 🎮✈️

\n","games":["Cat Survivors"]},{"at":410821572,"author":"Anthony Cosgrave","login":"anthonycosgrave","gh":1410114,"url":"https://imtoospexy.com/","text":"

It’s amazing you fit all of this into 13KB!!! I loved everything about, the gun fire had a really satisfying feel - animation and sound - to it, as did getting shot at. I used the binoculars to watch a torpedo hit a ship…just amazing!

\n","games":["Chickpocalypse Meow"]},{"at":410829774,"author":"Romain Arnaud","login":"Rominou34","gh":17294713,"url":"https://osmova.com/","text":"

Very well executed theme, as a plane lover I found it very good and I was impressed you could fit so much features in so little spaces (I was so surprised when I discovered you have many cameras and planes)

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The sound of the bullets you fire and the one you take is very immersive, and the time speedup feature is very welcome.

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The only thing to improve would be to put a reminder of the missions somewhere (I always forgot the cardinal directions of the missions), and fix the throttle : because the throttle is supposed to be R/T but T speeds up time, I couldn’t find how to slow down, and thus I didn’t try to land to save the pilots we need to rescue.

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Very good game nonetheless, I am waiting for the Director’s cut !

\n","games":["Oggy's Curse"]},{"at":410997557,"author":"ssjjcc97","login":"ssjjcc97","gh":233581704,"text":"

It’s really amazing the author actually fit a flight simulator in a 13KB-game. The control is smooth although understandably not very authentic. The game-play could use a bit of more guidance as the objective is not very informative. The ammo capacity is a bit of limited as the target can be hard to hit. Holistically speaking, it’s pretty good, really awesome that you could play flight simulator in a 13KB-game.

\n"},{"typ":2,"at":411104011,"author":"Christer Kaitila","login":"McFunkypants","gh":2111957,"url":"http://www.mcfunkypants.com","text":"

Absolutely stunning! What a magnificent js13k entry. This looks like a game that was 13 megabytes in size not 13 kilobytes! The detail of the aircraft and all the different camera and weapons and missions is truly something worthy of feeling so proud of, even if you ran out of space to add other cool ideas! I would love to see a “director’s cut” edition of this game free from any size constraints, since I can tell you would do an amazing job of it. One thing I wish it had was a “how to play” reference card, perhaps you could hold down spacebar to have an overlay appear, or little icons on the edges of the screen like console games often have, to remind you what buttons you can press. I believe that there are twenty-eight (28!) different keyboard keys that each do something different in this game! (I am counting all of 0..9, F1-F4, w,s,q,e,a,d,r,t,z,c,m,n,rmb,enter) which was too much for my tired mind to remember. Now if this amazing game had GAMEPAD support (with analog pitch and yaw and throttle), it would be fabulous and way easier to control!!! Keyboard icons could be put right beside different cockpit dials, for example: the word THROTTLE above the dial could also have little grey [R] and [T] keyboard keys there to remind you, and the same for guns and the flightstick, all they need are little labels. That said, overall, this was the most impressive entry in this year’s js13k I have discovered so far. Congratulations on creating a truly awesome piece of coding mastery! Very nice work.

\n"},{"at":411277256,"author":"Gleb Volkov","login":"malec-palec","gh":2181873,"twitter":"volkov_ayyy","text":"

I can’t believe this fits in 13KB - it feels like a legit flight sim with smooth controls, punchy guns, and awesome camera views. Lining up torpedoes (binoculars help!) is super satisfying and the night vibe is thrilling. A quick control reference or gamepad support would be icing on an already stellar entry.

\n","games":["Catapoolt"]},{"typ":1,"at":411939272,"re":411277256,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Thanks! Yeah, I added the gamepad support in the director´s cut (I didnt have space in the 13KBs) and Im adding also control reference.

\n"},{"at":411618541,"author":"Jonathan Vallet","login":"jonathan-vallet","gh":5329099,"text":"

✈️ Incredible airplane game! The graphics and interface are very polished for such a small size, and I love the day/night cycle. The only drawback is that flight time is a bit long before reaching the target, and the first ship I encountered destroyed me instantly.\nAt first I thought the game wasn’t on theme, but actually the approach is super original!

\n","games":["Witchcat"]},{"typ":1,"at":411939232,"re":411618541,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Thanks! You can fast forward time by pressing T, that way you can skip the boring parts.

\n"},{"at":411817104,"author":"Jasper Renow-Clarke","login":"picosonic","gh":26137750,"twitter":"femtosonic","text":"

Really impressive game

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The whole flying mechanic worked really well

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I’m going to have to play more when I have more time

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My only suggestion is there was a lot of keys to remember, and when pointing at the ground, if I turned the throttle off my altitude remained constant (like there was no gravity)

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Still, very impressive what you’ve done in 13k

\n","games":["Mochi and the midnight escape"]},{"typ":1,"at":411939188,"re":411817104,"author":"Javi Agenjo","login":"jagenjo","gh":393515,"url":"http://tamats.com","twitter":"tamat","text":"

Thanks, it is true that the physics are a little bit wonky, I tweaked them a lot but still, there are lots of unrealistic situations. It turns out that flying physics are hard!

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In the director´s cut Im fixing the controls a little, supporting gamepad and trying to make them more obvious.

\n"}],"results":{"theme":{"rank":49,"min":1,"score":3.45,"max":4.24},"innovation":{"rank":30,"min":1.2,"score":3.41,"max":4.03},"gameplay":{"rank":29,"min":1.18,"score":3.41,"max":4.37},"graphics":{"rank":22,"min":1.6,"score":4,"max":4.56},"audio":{"rank":55,"min":1.75,"score":3.14,"max":4.22},"controls":{"rank":96,"min":1.6,"score":3,"max":4.45},"primary":{"rank":30,"min":8.68,"score":20.41,"max":24.89},"label":"Overall"}}