Where can I get CAT, CAT, THAT DAMN CAT?

CAT, CAT, THAT DAMN CAT is available on z2 as well as playable in browser via Archive.org

CAT, CAT, THAT DAMN CAT

CAT, CAT, THAT DAMN CAT (which I am going to just call Cat, Cat going forward) recently turned 7-years old, and yet it's one of the most recently released ZZT games out there.

So far, (excluding my post-mortem on Ruins of ZZT,) every world looked at has been from within the first decade of ZZT's release. This time we'll be taking a look at a game that comes from the bitter end. One that's so recent, that the front page of z2 still has a news post for its release. (Which also goes to show how dead z2 is these days as well.)

By 2009, ZZT was pretty much done for. The community was rapidly shrinking, newly created worlds were a rarity, and those that would still come out, were greeted with an empty audience.

If you released a ZZT game in 2009, you'd be lucky to get ten people to play it. At this point, creating something with ZZT was about the journey and not the destination. There'd be no praise, no awards, no feedback. Cat, Cat was made because Commodore wanted to make it.

The game's title screen was created using ZBitmap, using a photograph of Commodore's own cat. It winds up being one of the most visually striking title screens I've ever seen in ZZT.

Starting the game gives a simple introduction, your owner is gone, and you need to find food, or your owner. Cats don't particularly value one over the other.

And with that, the standard gameplay begins. This late into the lifespan of ZZT, there's a definite interest in creating things which haven't been done before. No longer focused on pushing the limits of ZZT to emulate watered-down mechanics and gameplay of modern games, but instead to create experiences that have never been done before. Cat, Cat stands out as unique among ZZT games, and it becomes apparent why upon taking your first step.

When the player moves left, the cat repositions themselves on the screen. At first glance, one might expect this board to be an opening cutscene, a static piece of artwork depicting a living room, when in reality it's the way the game presents itself to player. Several objects in the dark green area check where the player is standing and draw the cat based on how the player stands. The game handles graphics like an LCD game.

The player can freely walk into the passage and proceed to the next room where the engine comes into play again. This time, with vertical movement as a possibility allowing the cat to jump up onto the endtable.

Though not explained explicitly, those familiar with ZZT's player clones will see the two surrounded by breakable walls and know that shooting will cause some action to occur. This is the way that the cat can interact with the world around them.

Knocking over the vase causes a spilled vase to appear on the ground where the player can collect a key.

Some objects, are purely decorative. Standing by the photo or fruit bowl will give you descriptions, but can't be interacted with. If you thought about eating the fruit, you'll be disappointed to learn they're wax.

The kitchen has the player climb tiny stairs to make the cat do the same. The game's engine betrays that it will be possible to exit from that door at some point due to the third passage visible in the player area.

Worth noting is the kitchen has wallpaper, and uses large appliances as a way to give a room a background without having the silhouette of the invisible cat sprites showing. Commodore is required to do a lot on creative design to bring life into rooms which have to have large black spaces where the cat can appear.

A horizontal row of red walls with three more for a tail manages to create an adorable scene of the cat hiding beneath the bed.

Or the player can choose to nap on top of it.

The bathroom door is locked, but can be opened with the key found in the vase.

The bathroom has a leaking showerhead which constantly drips water as well as a toilet which can of course be interacted with.

With the new key, it's possible to open the backdoor to the house and venture outside. Making a return trip like this does show the limitations of these static cat "sprites" in that they won't be able to change facing, so it leads to things like walking down the stairs backwards.

Stepping outside, the game presents its first "puzzle". The cat doesn't want anything to do with those bees.

Activating the sprinkler conveniently destroys the beehive. There's also this great sprite of the cat climbing the tree.

After climbing the tree and walking off a branch, the cat can take a one way trip through the hole in the shed's roof to get inside.

The rat actually moves around the room rapidly, appearing and disappearing with movement matching in style to that of the cat. The player has to wait for the rat to be on the same space as the cat before pressing the spacebar to catch it.

Of course, the rat turns out to be mechanical, and its capture opens up a trapdoor in the shed leading to cavern.

The cavern leads to a secret laboratory full of strange contraptions. On each of the tables there are fuses that can be collected.

The next screen consists of this mysterious device and a fuse box. There are blinking lights next to the machine that are either red or green depending on how the fuses are placed.

It is important to make sure the lights are both green.

Correctly positioning the fuses instead warps you through space onboard some sort of ship. You can see in the green player area that the room gets accessed from two different locations. The spaceship allows for a bit more exploration than the Earth based segment did.

The next screen has an elevator, as well as a navigational sign written in a language the cat as well as the player cannot read.

Heading east takes the cat to the captain's seat. There's a button under glass that you're unable to smash with just your paws, as well as some displays indicating the ship is running on backup power at the moment.

Heading southwest from the elevator takes you to a room where there's a hammer and a reference to Draco's game Edible Vomit where the "you snatch the hammer" line is taken directly from.

Armed with a hammer, it's possible to press the button on the captain's chair which appears to have activated the ship's self-destruct sequence.

Going back to the hammer room and climbing up the vent lets you restart the ship's engines, but this ultimately isn't a good thing.

Cool. Great.

After backtracking to shut the engines back of, it's time to get off this ship.

The escape pod blasts the cat away from the ship and onto a nearby volcanic planet.

With no real place to go, the cat ventures towards a nearby building. Given the constant lava flows, it seems like a wise decision.

Inside the building there are two paths, one accessible by lift. I opted to stay on the ground floor to start.

Bad call. A door blocks progress, and there appears to be a green cat with a gun on the other side anyway! The alien cat moves like you do, pacing back and forth on patrol.

The lift continues to a 3rd floor. From there is still another lift!

Continuing east is a room with more alien writing on the monitors. It also appears that these alien cats are running some flavor of DOS. Good for them.

Dropping down to the floor below proves to be a poor decision as an alien cat instantly vaporizes the poor kitty. If you look below you can see a floating gun as the code hasn't gotten around to telling the other alien cat sprite to appear. It looks like the next puzzle is figuring out how to get past these two without being destroyed.

Going back to the second level is a device that requires a password. Fortunately these cats don't have good security practices and left it in plain sight on one of the monitors.

Entering the code opens the door on the lower level. It goes without saying that the cat will be killed if they go there now.

The topmost floor contains an observation deck.

And a hand grenade!

My assumption was that you'd throw the grenade and then just climb on down. Turns out, you need to wait for the explosion to actually happen!

And wouldn't you know it, now both of the alien cats are out of commission.

Cat. With. A. Gun.

And so the game gives us our first boss fight against Wizcat.

The cat's laser pistol can be fired to attack Wizcat when he's lined up with that damn cat.

At the same time, you have to dodge his own attacks, as he shoots magic at you. The purple bolts travel corresponding to the actual ZZT bullets seen in the green engine area.

It takes awhile for your lasers to register and you're not locked in place during the animation so it's easy to get into situations where your laser is being fired from somewhere you're not currently standing.

If the game felt like an LCD game before, it really does now. The more damage Wizcat takes, the more often he'll shoot magic back at you. Unfortunately it's a bit of a tedious fight since there's very little to it.

And just when you might think it's over, there's a second fight immediately after the first.

The dragon fight plays out just like the fight against Wizcat. Except by now the player is probably sick of the combat system, unique as it might be. The graphical limitations imposed by having to draw out of invisibles looked passable for the cats, but the dragon comes off really crude looking. It's a bit of a low note for the game to end with this.

And that's that for CAT, CAT, THAT DAMN CAT.

The game is really unique among other ZZT games thanks to its graphical presentation, which generally works really well. It looks and feels unlike any other ZZT game out there. Commodore did an excellent job working with the very restrictive requirements for essentially creating an LCD game in ZZT.

Had this game been a more traditional presentation with a player walking around rooms, I don't think the game would've held up nearly as well. Commodore managed to put a fresh coat of paint on ZZT in 2009, which is really quite the feat.

It's short and the puzzles are all very simple, but it works for the whimsical adventure Commodore wanted it to be. Had the game wound up being about a spy, I don't think the engine would've been able to support the more complex premise.

The only real complaint is the combat tacked on at the very end. Like the rest of the game, it's highly original, but while the engine works nicely for moving from room to room and interacting with items, it stretches its abilities a bit too far for combat, creating an action scene that starts to drag, followed by another fight which ends the game on a bit of a low note. The dragon fight also feels oddly out of place. Perhaps if the combat had been split up with one fight on Earth and another in space the pacing would've felt a bit better.

Despite its flaws in combat, overall CAT CAT, THAT DAMN CAT is a pleasure to play, and can be beaten in less than half an hour. It's short, and even the most simple cat graphics can be cute. Give it a shot!

If you do play it, and you also have a cat, you'll almost certainly want to pet them after playing this. It's what I'm going to do right now.