Submitted for Brackeys Game Jam 2025.2
Theme: Risk it for the Biscuit

Controls

• A / Left Arrow - Move Left
• D / Right Arrow - Move Right
• Space - Jump/Double Jump
• Shift - Dash
• Left Click - Attack in the current direction that you are facing
• T - Teleport to Spawn
  • (Teleporting may only be done while grounded and not fighting a Boss.)
• Press the Hamburger Button in the top right to open the Pause Menu

Summary

Thrust into a strange fantasy world far away from your past life as a house cat, it's time to take charge and become the hero you've always dreamed of! Or is it time to horde some delectable fish biscuits?

Game Description

One Life: A Cat's Nip is a Metroidvania that allows the player to "Risk it for the Biscuit" every time they venture further into the world. Fight small creatures and Boss around the map and collect fish biscuits that are not only your score but also your currency.  Defeating a Boss allows you to buy an upgrade corresponding to their specialty, but beware! Every upgrade you take comes with a potentially steep downside.

Buffs and debuffs not doing enough for you? Or are you running low on biscuits? It's time to "Risk it for the Biscuit"! From reducing the upgrade cost by half to reducing the cost to one measly biscuit, you'll be rolling in biscuits if you're not already rolling in the random stats you've just acquired.

Decide when your run is over whenever you want by returning to the center of the map... Or you could always keep pushing forwards for more biscuits!!!

Credits

• Brandon - Game Design (Map, Combat & Movement Balancing, Enemy Design, and Upgrade Design), Programming, and UI in the "Bonus" builds
• Canaan - Programming and Menu UI
• Henri - Art (Cat, Dragonfly, Thumbnail, Icon, Menu Buttons, Unused Beetle, Unused Mouse, and Unused Squirrel)
• Sonia - Audio (Finding all the sounds in the game)
• Will - Programming and Art (Rat, Bee, and Biscuits) (+ Cleanup Crew)
• (Disclaimer: We did not make the tileset, hedgehog enemy asset, fly enemy asset, or sounds from scratch.

Known Bugs

• Expensive Damage Upgrade - "The Devil's Pet" - is priced as an Affordable upgrade.
• Should be 500 Biscuits with a discount to 250 Biscuits, but is priced at 250 Biscuits with a discount to 125 Biscuits.
• This is fixed in the Bonus builds.
• The Player can occasionally not teleport out of a Boss Room.
  • If you can reproduce this effect consistently, please let us know!

Info for Nerds

Hehehee... Hello fellow nerds. It is I, Brandon, the Game Designer, here to offer some more insight into the game (without spoiling anything).

• There are four paths, and each is specialized to one of four stats that you can augment: Speed, Health, Resistance, or Damage.
  • Top Left Path: Increases Speed at the expense of Resistance
  • Resistance can go negative. This increases the amount of damage you take, up to a maximum of -50 Resistance (= 1.5x Damage Taken). Otherwise, Resistance takes off a flat percentage of the damage you would have taken, up to a maximum of 90%.
  • (Calculation: Post-Resistance Damage = Pre-Resistance Damage * (1 - Resistance, i.e., with 10 Resistance, a 50 Damage attack does 45 Damage because 50 - 10% of 50 or 50 * 0.9 = 45.)
  • Top Right Path: Increases Health at the expense of Speed
  • Speed has a minimum cap, so don't worry about breaking your ankles from how many biscuits you ate.
  • Bottom Right Path: Increases Resistance at the expense of Damage
  • Damage has a minimum cap, so you will always be able to fight your enemies.
  • Bottom Left Path: Increases Damage at the expense of Health
    • Health has a minimum cap, so you can't kill yourself from your hunger for blood.
• Killing all of the enemies in a path rewards you with 250 Biscuits.
• The Boss Shop always contains upgrades of three different tiers: Cheap, Affordable, and Expensive.
  • Cheap upgrades cost 100 Biscuits, but "Risking it for the Biscuit" on them costs only 1 Biscuit.
  • Affordable upgrades cost 250 Biscuits, but "Risking it for the Biscuit" on them costs 125 Biscuits.
  • Expensive upgrades cost 500 Biscuits, but "Risking it for the Biscuit" on them costs 250 Biscuits.
    • (Exception: Expensive Damage Upgrade - "The Devil's Pet" - is priced as an Affordable upgrade.)
  • (There's some math behind the upgrade values, random ranges, and stuff, but I think that might just be too nerdy for a game description...)
• The max biscuits you could get from clearing the entire map of enemies is (and you did the math correct) 1000 Biscuits, but this is a Metroidvania and I do like to wish on some wells...