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“Daymare Cat is a gorgeously sketched exploratory platformer that feels like a simple adventure game. The platforming here isn’t particularly challenging, but almost every hand-drawn scene is worth witnessing.” – said some by now non-existent indie game review website in 2013.

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The main character of this game is Cat Jahnke, and I’m not talking about the in-game little girl, but the singer and songwriter, who created the song that this game is all about. This is the reason why this particular game stands out in my catalogue of games. Hats off to you, Cat. Let’s just hope that you’re right in the song, and things will finally get better.

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Meanwhile, it’s 2023. How is it possible that it’s been 10 years already… Daymare Cat is the ancestor of Slice of Sea, one could even say that it was the foundation of Seaweed’s game. Cat is the OG.

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This game needed some major upgrading, since its release my gamedev art direction and workflow changed drastically.  Things that are new in this Anniversary Edition:

– The game is in glorious 60 fps and plays in full screen.

– Most noticeably the game has new background texture. This might be a bit controversial take, but in my opinion this improves the vibe.

– Interactive items have a color. Yes. A color.

– Cat now runs like a ballerina, not a raptor. Thank god.

– Platforming is a bit easier thanks to hitbox tweaking but also by redrawing platforms in few places, for reference check the main gate.

– I added a new pathway for you in case you have a fear of being eaten alive by a cosmic horror monster and really don’t want to do this part. So now you can go around it.

– No changes were done to the music, since it’s already perfection.

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Hear me out.

For the sake of my mental health, today I decided to take a one-day break from remastering Submachine into Legacy (I’m still finishing chapter 8) and see how things were back in the good old days of flash development over a decade ago. Not sure why I started tinkering with “Where is 2010?”, but here we are with a brand new version – renamed into more lore-friendly title of Daymare Stray. I think I was just curious to see how the code looked like in those old days. Not code per se, but my thought process concerning constructing game logic. It was… strange. Like reading your old diary pages, stepping into your old self. Then I changed main character animations to look a bit better, then switched to 60 fps, which prompted me to update all animations, and and then also sound design needed a bit of love. The screenshot you see above shows a small graphical change in which I emphasized the fact that you can climb back left up that wall, as in old version it was not so obvious. Is this a one-day remaster? Nah, that will come when I remaster entire series into one big game, just like Submachine Legacy. But I have to admit – it was fun to get back to flash for one day. It’s also super convenient to be able to draw and code in one application. This really highlights the genius of flash workflow. The freedom to create in an instant. Don’t get me wrong, working in Game Maker and Photoshop and Spine and Flash all at once is also super fine, but flash was on a completely different level. It made a game designer out of me after all. Ah, to be young again…

Enjoy this little trip down the memory lane!

Coincidence? Yes. :D

A glimpse into one of alternate futures.