Whiskers in the Dark by Diego Teran
-----> PLAY IN BROWSER, CLICK HERE <-----
https://youtu.be/TVc6FIqnbfI
-----> PLAY IN BROWSER, CLICK HERE <-----
Lurk through the underground tunnels as you stealthily make your way through them in Whiskers in the Dark.
Play as a small cat confined to the space of the shadows, hiding away from the lights (and whatever's out there) seeking to hunt you down. Carefully make your way back to the other cats who've already made their escape, but be careful not to get caught!
Note: The Web version on Itch may not work on Macs, due to Godot 4 exporting issues.

Controls
A/D - Left/Right
W/Space - Jump (again to double jump)
Note that you can wall jump by jumping off of one wall to a different wall. You may also hang onto walls (although you will slowly slide down while hanging.)
Credits
Programming by Diego, Seth, and Diego
Art by Natasha
Music by Handong
Additional Programming by Handong
Special thanks to Gnar and Zoe for their meows.
Made with Godot
--
The Mac executable has not been tested, and is unsigned. We're working on fixing that, but for now follow this link for steps on how to run it: https://docs.godotengine.org/en/stable/tutorials/export/runningonmacos.html#doc-running-on-macos
| Itch.io | https://knknatasha.itch.io/whiskers-in-the-dark |
| Original URL | https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/54/whiskers-in-the-dark |
Ratings
| Overall | 101th | 4.114⭐ | 103🧑⚖️ |
| Fun | 179th | 3.92⭐ | 102🧑⚖️ |
| Innovation | 284th | 3.696⭐ | 104🧑⚖️ |
| Theme | 678th | 3.49⭐ | 104🧑⚖️ |
| Graphics | 170th | 4.26⭐ | 104🧑⚖️ |
| Audio | 25th | 4.275⭐ | 102🧑⚖️ |
| Mood | 28th | 4.371⭐ | 103🧑⚖️ |
| Given | 59🗳️ | 97🗨️ |
To be honest I never figured out how to climb the walls reliably without rapidly jumping and inching my way up, so this might be a "me" thing. The cat felt really sticky when grabbing the walls. Perhaps if the double jump refreshed when hanging, or "jumping" off a wall gave more kick upwards to help climb, it would feel a lot better.
I liked the theme, and the art, music, lighting effects, even the sudden grabbing all were fantastic at setting the mood. I smiled at the bucket once I realized what to do, it felt very cat like and clever to solve those rooms. :smiley_cat:
The wall jumping is a bit hard to nail down, but there's a good foundation for a puzzle platformer here
The music is also INCREDIBLE - Like I could listen to this for hours :D
This is definitely the best jam game I've played so far! Good job :smile:
But that's really a detail compared to the quality of the game. The graphics, the sound design and the gameplay is so well polished it really feels good to play it. Well done !

P.S. my headcanon is that those creepy hands that were grabbing the cats are actually people wanting to adopt or just pet the cat and it's only scary because the kitten doesn't know that
Very good gameplay, love the little cat, the sound design is very scary and very great & the lights reflecting on the cat is interesting! Good job guys
Anyway, thanks for sharing. Have a good day.
had tough time to play some levels but in the end it was worth it to give it a try!
As I mentioned on Twitch, it worked for me on web on a Mac - it just took a while to load, like all Godot 4 games do on web
Overall really well executed!
Art - great all round, loved the use of the larger pieces at the start to set the scene for the story. The aesthetic was nice and consistent, and the lighting was unreal - really, really impressive stuff going on there, including how it made its way into later puzzles (buckets, movement, etc).
Movement generally felt good - obviously a hard thing to totally nail down within jam deadlines, and I'm awfully spoiled by stuff like Celeste - but I generally felt competently in control of my cat. Difficulty was definitely there, but it was pleasantly challenging for the most part. I have a note on this below with audio however.
Audio - music was really restrained and professional. I love the slow evolutions and introductions of new instruments (from just the synth/percs, into the keyboard, into the flute, etc). Super minimal but really tastefully put together. I didn't feel like the character sounds were as strong (kind of bassy and... hard?) considering the protagonist, but they were serviceable.
One criticism on audio implementation is that having died *a lot*, the strings lick got pretty abrasive after awhile. First time it happened, it hit beautifully - but as the game got more challenging, it started to sting a bit. I think in a game where the player is expected to die repeatedly and quickly (and you've managed this great with quick respawns), any visual/audio cues should be a little more restrained so the player doesn't feel too punished.
Oops, this writeup got huge.
Well done all! Overall killer submission.
My only critique is the wall climbing/grabbing mechanic, feels a bit too sticky at times. I also found a bug where I just beelined to the exit on the last level and I passed despite getting caught by the hand.
Lol that bug is easy to repro, Im surprised you are the first one that tried.
For the light mechanic, I would have liked if it were an accumulating "detection" value rather than a binary one. Being caught after leaping through a tiny sliver of light felt bad.
I was really surprised how nice the music was. By the time it started playing, I had already heard the "you got caught" sound a dozen times and wondered to myself why it started quietly instead of with nice music. For the capture sound, perhaps some sort of sound like a subtle reversed noise swell would have fit in without becoming too annoying. But if it's something meant to be heard over and over, I think it shouldn't have pitched musical content, and ideally would have slight variations on each playback.
Thanks for sharing, I enjoyed it a lot!
Made me want to go play Omori again :') Great job!
The game is great though, lots of levels and pretty interesting challenges. Well done!
I appreciated not being limited to 9 lives XD And the last level was definitely a tough one, but very rewarding! And what a beautiful credits theme song :)
The intro sequence was really well made and immediately set the tone for the game.
Overall I enjoyed this a lot, great entry!
Anyhow, the game itself was also a lot of fun. Especially the later levels, where you really had to sit still for a moment and figure out the patterns and the best way to get through. I think it was a good choice to keep the platforming not too complicated, such that the puzzley element became more important. Sometimes the wall jump was a bit finnicky, but nothing too bad.
I just could not really figure out the relation to the theme, but I dont care too much about that :P Really well done! I enjoyed this one a lot :D
Although I like the wall jump mechanic but it was a little tricky to get around in my opinion. Especially when moving up 1-block stairs, I was going forwards and pressed jump, but the game detected that wall and hence made the cat jump towards the opposite direction, as if I was wanting to perform a wall jump. I suggest that you guys should add some kind of height limit when check for whether the player should perform a wall jump, or should only do that if the cat was not grounded. And one more thing is when the cat was hanging on the wall, holding the "S" or "Down arrow" key would make the cat slide down faster, this would make the controls more forgiving and flexible, I actually got caught a few times because I was trying to get off the wall by pressing jump or the movement keys.
Other than that, the game feels really polished and well designed, I appreciated the amount of effort you guys put into this entry, especially the dynamic lighting, in such a small time frame! Very astonishing job!


I felt that the visual presentation was a little on the rough side, though I think the elements were all there. The procedural lighting with normal maps were definitely the way to go, but the way it all came together was a little inconsistent (hard v.s. soft edges, high vs low contrast areas. mostly compositional things).
The light mechanic was a little bit overtuned, difficulty wise. I would definitely have appreciated a bit of "grace" on some of the timings where I really only had a foot out of place for a fraction of a second and still got caught. Particularly in the later levels where there was very little warning about when certain lights would appear.
Overall though, I thought this was a pretty solid entry. I really appreciated the cutscenes, music and SFX, which all helped immerse the player in the world. Thanks again and good luck!