ARG / CatGhost

L-R: Naarah, Gideon, Elon

Nothing holds sacred, nothing holds true, everyone tries to make a fool out of you.

— Key^note In response to the question "What is CatGhost?"

CatGhost is a Horror Comedy Web Original multimedia series and Alternate Reality Game by Kris Patrick of The Bedfellows fame. Most episodes consist of two parts: a YouTube video and a game that can be downloaded via a link in the description.

The videos generally revolve around a trio of characters. Elon, the titular cat, Naarah the titular ghost, and Gideon, a hedgehog. Elon and Naarah are witches and the series rotates between comedy and more surreal moments concerning the supernatural figures and forces the two have become entangled with. Though Gideon is often taunted and bullied by Elon and Naarah, he still tags along during their exploits.

The games are darker and more horror oriented than the videos, and often hint at the characters' backstory.

Some videos break from the usual format by not coming with a game. Some of these are done in Retraux pixelated video game style and feature characters from the backstory. Another features a Fourth-Wall Mail Slot with the characters answering questions from viewers.

The creators of the series have also collaborated with other Youtubers like Tony Crynight and Night Mind, with content exclusive to their channels.

See also Puzzle Party, another work by Kris under the name Krispy Animation.

---

This series contains examples of:

Tropes for the Web Series

• All There in the Manual: While not named during the episode, the banana seen in the episode Banana is credited as Robert D.
• And the Adventure Continues: At the end of Episode 13: Acceptance, a message appears:
  When one door closes another one opens. Elon's story is over but the Catghost universe continues.
  • The website now advertises a new upcoming video game called "The Legend Of Frog". Unfortunately, The Legend of Frog was cancelled.
• Animesque: Not the series itself, but some of the concept art, especially one depicting the human Elon and Narrah that gives the latter Big Anime Eyes. Her design was even based on Mio from Nichijou.
• Apocalypse How: Class X-4: Thanks to Gideon and his prolonged exposure to his doppelganger, he ends up causing the universe to explode, causing Naarah, Elon and himself to end up some sort of limbo.
• Arc Words: "Let Us Reunite", said by talking busts in the first game "Happy Birthday" and seen at the end of "Void 1".
• Armor-Piercing Question: In the eighth episode, Judgement, Elon is asked, "Why did you run away?" She suddenly freezes up and is not able to answer the question.
• Art Evolution: The first two episodes had 2D background art, with muted grays, blues and greens and an almost paper-cut like style. Starting with the third episode, the backgrounds became rendered in 3D and had much more saturated but darker colors, adding to the overall tone of the series.
• Art Shift: Several episodes with have short portions where the art looks like that of an old arcade game, with pixel sprites and flickering lines.
• Audience Participation: In 2018, before the release of "Catghost 8: Judgement", fans were invited to use a temporary feature on the website to record questions for the characters to answer and send them to the creators. The questions were responded to in the aforementioned "Catghost 8: Judgement".
• Bilingual Bonus: In the episode Judgement, Elon Doyle is asked whether she is truly good or just a monster. She responds with "¿Por qué no los dos?" Spanish for "Why not both?" Also doubles as a Shout-Out to a memetic commercial.
• Braving the Blizzard: Starting in "Warmth", the characters are stuck dealing with a blizzard. They somehow escape into new forms in a new setting, but Elon returns to the original universe with Malone, and she ends up back in the blizzard, sleeping on a wagon with bodies frozen inside.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:
  • Gideon bids the audience goodbye at the end of the first episode.
  • Episode 8 Judgement has the characters answering fan questions. When asked what role the audience plays in the series, Naarah replies, “If a tree fell in the woods, and no one is there to watch it, is it entertaining?”
  • The same episode includes a question from an audience member complimenting the work and asking what inspired the series. Gideon immediately starts speaking in the voice of creator Kris Patrick, thanking them and explaining the series was a combination of his love of psychological horror and comedy. Naraah then speaks in Alexis Ruiz's voice, thanking everyone for watching and promising more content in the near-future. Elon asks what they're talking about, and Gideon and Naraah go back to their normal voices having no memory of what just happened.
  • In '"Acceptance'', Malone talks to Elon about all of the "continuity errors and sloppy writing", talks about how none of their reality is real and how Elon doesn't exist.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: In the game Happybirthday, all interactable characters have a different text color.
  • The taller red skeleton, Elon, has red text.
  • The shorter blue-gray skeleton, Naarah, has blue text.
  • Key has green text.
  • Gideon and the busts have white text.
  • When they were humans, Elon had red hair. She was burned to death with fire and can now produce fire from her paws. Narrah had blueish grey hair, was drowned in water, and is now in an all blue form that looks like bubbles.
• Comically Missing the Point: Gideon in the episode Banana.
  Robert: [sobbing] I'm a banana!
  Gideon: I don't know, it seems more like a plantain than a banana.
• Don't Go in the Woods: A location known as the Dark Forest serves as the setting for the first game and a scene from the third episode and game of Elon and Naarah in their human forms arguing about a ritual Elon wants to perform, implied to involve the sacrifice of a dog that's implied to be Naarah's. It is described by Key, who is located within it, as "a place of the cursed" and, as mentioned previously, witchcraft is performed there. When asked about it in Episode 8, Elon says "Nobody should ever go into it, nobody needs to go into it, don't go into it!".
• Death of a Child: Elon and Naarah suffering horrible deaths by being burned at the stake and drowning, respectively. Both were quite young at the time of their deaths, with Naarah being fourteen at the oldest.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Gideon waving goodbye to the audience at the end of the first episode. Since then, the fourth wall wasn't acknowledged again, at least until the episode Judgement.
• Elemental Motifs: Elon's human form was burned at the stake with fire, in her cat form she can conjure fire from her paws, and she could be considered to have a "fiery" personality. Naarah's human form was drowned in water, her ghost form looks like water bubbles, and she could be described as having a "bubbly" personality.
• The End of the World as We Know It: The ending of the episode Key features the universe exploding.
• Formula-Breaking Episode:
  • The Void episodes, which are much shorter than the standard episodes, and are in the old-school pixely style.
  • Episode 8 Judgement is one long in-character Q&A.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: "Catghost 8" involves the characters answering questions from fans. The questions come in the form of recorded audio clips transmitted to the characters via a radio.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: Plenty to go around.
  • In episode 1 Birthday, a blurry image of the Skinwalker appears in a single frame while the group is at Party Country.
  • In the second episode Knock, the word "excruciate" can be seen when Gideon is transported. The word can be used in the game that goes with the episode, also called Knock.
  • In episode 3 Window, when Elon opens the pocket mirror, a pentagram with words at each corner can be seen for one frame. When followed through the pentagram, the words read "They are far from here?"
  • In episode 4 Circle, when the pentagram is glowing, the phrase "Go east in bad times" can be seen very briefly. This is a hint for The Bad Ending in that episode's game, Unholy Circle.
  • In episode 5 Banana, a single frame at the very end shows Elon in her demonic form.
  • The egg that was introduced in episode 6 Hole can be found hidden in the background of several shots of episode 7 Key.
• Freudian Slip: When Elon is asked who the woman in the mirror is.
  Elon: Oh, nobody important. [Beat] Wait a minute…
• Functional Magic: Theurgy type. Elon and Naarah appear to be actual Wiccans. Notably, some of the rituals they perform are based off of actual religious practices. In Catghost 4 Circle, Elon and Naarah use a ritual in order to prevent the "bowels of evil" from leaking into the sanctuary. However, due to Gideon's meddling, the ritual goes wrong, and a being possesses Naarah's... ghost.
• The Ghost: Many characters mentioned in the game Banana have yet to be shown or even talked about in the series.
• Hidden Depths: When given a question in Judgement, Gideon replies with a surprisingly insightful and deep answer.
  Anon: I am alive? I know I'm alive...
  Gideon: Whether you exist or not is not important. What you DO with that existence is what is important.
• Hollywood Psych: While all of this might have something to do with the current Gideon being a clone of the original, he claims to have a genetic disorder that strips him of the ability to feel fear, despite several instances in the past that proves what he said was not true. Afterwards, Gideon contradicts himself again by claiming he doesn't remember anything, when in Catghost 8, Judgement, at one point he states that he remembers being born.
• Horror Hates a Rulebreaker: A mysterious entity only appears when Elon looks in a mirror. The only way to make it go away is for Elon to run away from her reflection.
• Madness Mantra: I miss you. I miss you. I miss you. I miss you…
• Money to Burn: In "Catghost 9: Warmth", Gideon sits by a campfire fueled by burning dollars, or "paper notes" as they are referred to by Key and Naarah. In the art on the show's Patreon page, all three main characters sit by the same fire, albeit in different forms. Elon is a bat, Naarah resembles the jellyfish-like thing from the Christmas livestream, and Gideon is a log.

• Numbers Station: On Christmas Eve through Christmas Day 2018, the CatGhost YouTube channel did a livestream called MBS-823905 X A F 37 (3370 kHz) - RTTY, the title of which is a radio reference. In it, the Evil Naarah face, this time on a jellyfish-like body, recites strings of numbers in an artificial seeming tone that can be decoded into messages similar to the presumed use and purpose of numbers stations.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: The Skin Walker/Evil Narrah in the Tony Crynight Speedpaint video glitches onscreen eerily.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • Gideon joining Robert's cries when he realizes he's a hedgehog, until Elon, annoyed, interrupts them.
  • The two Gideons passing stuff to each other while eating dinner, each taking a really long time to ask for an item, and pausing when receiving the item. All while staying completely deadpan.
• Playing with Fire: Elon is able to conjure fire on her paws, although she has only used it to light candles.
• "Reason You Suck" Speech: Malone delivers a big one to Elon in Episode 13, Acceptance.
• Retraux: Anything taking place inside the "Party Country" arcade machine is in a pixelated style, and flashbacks are as well.
• Rule of Three: Three main characters, three circles on Key’s marking, the Trinity seen in the game Knock, "three doors, three choices…"
• Shout-Out:
  • Gideon apparently remembers being born.
  • In "Catghost 8 Judgement":
    • Gideon yells "Are you not entertained?" a famous quote from Gladiator.
    • Elon says a line in Spanish "¿Por qué no los dos?" meaning "Why not both?", which is a quote from a commercial for Old El Paso tacos.
    • Naarah says "In space, no one can hear you complain!" which is a reference to the Tag Line for Alien.
  • When a Youtuber covers the series in their videos, the Catghost team tends to reference them with images on secret pages of their website.
  • Robert D is a talking banana with a face who says the line "I'm a banana!", similar to the banana character in Rejected.
• Special Thanks: At the end of the episode Circle, there is a special thanks to Beth. This becomes significant when it's revealed she is the blue-haired woman speaking in the flashback.
• Sudden Soundtrack Stop: In "Judgement", the looping music stops at several moments, emphasizing the character's responses to questions, either due to noteworthy responses, or just to add some blunt comedy. Lines spoken during these moments include:
  • Elon's statement that the woods are a bad place nobody should go into.
  • The sudden interruption by the skinwalker.
  • Naarah's long pause and harsh "No" when asked if the name "Beth" meant something to her.
  • Elon's claim that she wanted Naarah to leave when they first met.
  • Elon and Naarah gagging when asked what "libation" is.
  • Kris Patrick and Alexis Ruiz answering a question as themselves.
• Take That!: One at YouTube theorist Noir Ascii in the episode Judgement.
  Noir Ascii: What does it all mean?^note A reference to his Shout-Out on the official website
  Naarah: Uh, I think that's your job. Hurry up and get to it!
• Trapped in TV Land: It is heavily implied that the characters are all spirits trapped inside a game called Party Country, sitting on the Programmer's computer- at one point, Narrah and Gideon actually fly out of the computer, and see Elon's conversation with Malone being shown on the screen in text.
• Trial by Ordeal: Elon and Naarah were subject to cruel witch trials, such as Naarah being drowned to see if she was a witch who could float.
• Wham Episode: Episode 7, Key, the finale of the Creature Saga. Elon meets Key when venturing into the Hole, and is informed the world will end. Later, as Elon and Naarah sit together on a cliff, waiting for the inevitable, the two Gideons high-five, causing the world around them to disintegrate.
• Wham Line:
  • From the above episode, we get this one from Key.
    Key: Your world is ending.
  • Later, we get this line from Naarah, finally confirming a wide spread fan theory once and for all:
    Naarah: Man, being dead… sucks.
  • In Episode 13, Acceptance:
    Elon: I refuse. To believe. I'm dead!
    Malone: It's much worse than that. [laughs] ...you never existed in the first place.
• Wham Shot: Again in the episode Key, human Elon and Naarah sitting side by side in the last few seconds of the episode.

Tropes for the Games

• A Winner Is You: Most of the games lack a real ending, usually just auto-closing the game or, at most, showing a single picture (though one that contains a hint about the plot). The exceptions are Window, Dark Cavern, and the Bad Ending of Unholy Circle, which provide a cutscene.
• Big Bad: While most games have No Antagonist, there are four that do have a villain:
  • Unholy Circle: The ghosts are attacking the village that the player must defend.
  • Banana: Elon Doyle herself is keeping the protagonist trapped inside the attic.
  • Midnight: Bethany Phillips is the Villain Protagonist out to steal the baby Narrah from the Native American village so she can have a child to raise.
  • Leak: The Busts spend the game chasing Elon and Narrah, who must escape them.
• Darker and Edgier: The main series, while also dark, has plenty of comedy to offset the horror. The games, on the other hand, lack any jokes and are primarily horror.
• Earn Your Bad Ending: Unholy Circle's Good Ending is acquired by having less than five candles when the ghosts have taken all five landmarks. The Bad Ending, on the other hand, requires you to get at least five candles before the ghosts take the landmarks, then start a new game and walk to the right end of the screen, triggering the real end that gives a piece of backstory for the series.
• Easter Egg:
  • A recurring one is the typing of the word "murder". In Happybirthday and Window, it causes Elon and Narrah's skeletons or the Skin Walker to pop up as a Jump Scare. In Exit, it unlocks a scene that is basically a Wacky Marriage Proposal from Kris Patrik to co-creator Alexis Ruiz.
  • In Unholy Circle, putting in "reflection" when asked to enter your name will let you play as the Watcher.
  • Dance Party just shows Elon and Narrah dancing and that's it... unless you type debug partycountry.exe, which will allow you to move around into a glitchy area with all sorts of odd objects.
• Edutainment: In-Universe, the Programmer originally intended Party Country to be this.
  I decided to make a learning game for kids. [...] Original plans for the characters was they would learn early development lessons, like brushing teeth, doing chores, being a good friend, and telling silly jokes together.
• Endless Game: Unholy Circle has you defending the village from ghosts, and will go on until the ghosts have captured all five of the landmarks.
• Foreshadowing: Basically every game aside from the last three (as by that point there is nothing to foreshadow) hints towards a future reveal.
  • Happybirthday contains a boatload of foreshadowing towards future reveals in the series.
    • The skeletons are of Elon, Narrah, and Bethany, and their lines are referencing their death and rebirth into their spirit forms.
    • One of the interactable objects is a pocket mirror, which resembles the one that the Watcher uses to appear to Elon, and one of Gideon's lines when examining it is "You will remember", referring to how every appearance of mirrors in the series leads to a flashback of sorts.
    • The shovel and the lines Gideon speaks when examining it references the Digging Girl, the protagonist of Dark Cavern.
    • The bone pile lines reference a heart, bone, and dagger, the things associated with the Skin Walker.
    • The busts speak the line "let us reunite", which is the line Bethany spoke as she jumped off a cliff to reunite with her dead loved ones.
    • The only object that Gideon cannot interact with is a chair hanging off the ground, likely representing the chair Narrah was on when she was subjected to the dunking test to see if she was a witch- and this test resulted in her drowning.
    • The Key is probably the biggest source of foreshadowing in the game, with lines upon lines referencing future events and reveals. Both Robert and Malone spoke through Key before they appeared in the episodes.
  • In Joke, the goal is to use Tap Code to enter words revealing images. Entering "excrutiate" reveals the stake that Elon was burned on, "proseltye" reveals Narrah's skeleton and a chair, referencing her death by dunking test, and "trinity" shows three people in shadow, who are later indicated to be the main trio of Elon, Narrah, and Gideon in their human forms.
  • Window ends with a flachback of Elon pressuring Narrah into killing her dog Azule for the ritual, with Azule's body being visible for a second.
  • In Unholy Circle, one of the five landmarks, a mine, would become the setting of the next game, Dark Cavern.
  • Dark Cavern's poems represent events that are shown in later games, like Bethany's kidnapping of baby Narrah and Elon running away from her (possibly dead) family.
  • Banana's jar messages hint towards the characters being Dead to Begin With by showing their borth and death dates, and some other things like Elon and Narrah's pact with Aglasas. The secret ending leads to a hidden page on the official website hosting a painting of human Elon and Naarah sitting on a cliff overlooking a large body of water. This foreshadows the ending of the episode Key.
  • Two messages in Key hint towards the appearance of Bethany and Malone in the episodes. Also, an image hidden in the game files displays Key's Throne form before it was shown in the final episode.
  • Midnight hints with the final image that Gideon is Bethany's husband.
  • Each ending in Leak.
    • Sacrifice shows the altar that Elon and Narrah sacrificed Azule on.
    • Clone has a bunch of figures of Gideon on a shelf, hinting at the characters being trapped in the game Party Country.
    • Circle shows Malone and Elon standing around their coven, hinting at their relationship.
    • Libation shows Elon and Narrah sitting around the cake surrounded by the Council, having been outed as witches and being forced to eat a Witch's Cake made from their own urine as a trial.
    • Fate foreshadows the end of the next game, Pertinence, where Malone first meets Elon by seeing her lying on the ground.
• Failure Is the Only Option: In Banana, you will be caught by either Elon or the Watcher no matter what you do.
• Fourth-Wall Mail Slot: The mysterious megalith known as "Key" responds to questions posed by players of "Happybirthday", the game released alongside the first episode.
• Jump Scare:
  • In the games Happybirthday and Window, Naarah and Elon's skeletons will suddenly pop up and close the game if the word "murder" is typed.
  • In the game Banana, Elon Doyle can jump out at you while in her demon form. Alternatively, the Watcher will show up and jump at you instead.
  • In the game Midnight, there is a random chance that the game will draw an image of the Skinwalker/Evil Narrah on the screen.
• Multiple Endings: Some of the games have this.
  • Unholy Circle has three.
    • The Good Ending, where you collect less than five candles and only get a screen with Good Ending on it.
    • Bad Ending Unlocked, where you collect at least five candles, upon which a screen will let you know you have unlocked the Bad Ending.
    • The actual Bad Ending, where you go to the right during gameplay and play as Bethany walking to the cliff and jumping off because her daughter and husband are both dead.
  • Dark Cavern has five, depending on which of five rooms you find in the cavern, complete with a poem for each. Interestingly, you can only get one ending per download, as even re-downloads will just leave you in the ending room.
    • Steal: Describes Bethany's kidnapping of Narrah.
    • Darkness: The poem is a warning to avoid going into the Dark Forest, which the protagonist proceeds to ignore.
    • Canary: The protagonist buries herself inside the cavern floor.
    • Wheel: Describes Elon abandoning her family.
    • Camp: Describes a secret and dangerous place that the protagonist should not go to.
  • In Banana, the main ending has you caught by Elon, but there is a secret ending that happens randomly where the Watcher appears in a mirror and jumps at the player.
  • Midnight has three. Turning back and going to the bridge at the beginning closes the game, dying to the villagers gets you a screen where Bethany dies from the arrows, and the main ending has Bethany escape with Narrah, a screen showing Beth and Gideon holding the baby.
  • Leak has five different endings depending on the path taken.
    • Sacrifice: The screen shows a bloodstained altar, possibly the one that Azule was sacrificed on, and a campfire with two darker spots around it.
    • Clone: The screen shows a pile of Gideon figures on a shelf, likely the Party Country who Gideon inhabits.
    • Circle: The screen shows Key in a circle of torches, with Malone and a young Elon next to it, as well as the silhouettes of a large crowd of people, likely Malone's coven.
    • Libation: The screen shows Elon and Narrah sitting in the cabin around the cake that Gideon was given in Episode 1, with more silhouettes in the background.
    • Fate: The screen shows Elon laying on the ground weakly while Malone stands there, referencing when the two first met.
• No Antagonist: Most of the games, while creepy, lack any sort of figure out to get the player, and are focused more on exploration and finding clues to the story.
• No Plot? No Problem!: Some of the games don't seem to have a real plot, though they often do contain hints towards the overall story.
  • Joke is just you knocking on the Horrible Beast door and using different combinations of knocks to get an image.
  • Window is just you waiting in front of a window, and after some time the Watcher appears.
  • Key is you the player, represented by a bust, floating in front of the titular megalith. It did make a plot-related statement after the end of each of the three countdowns.
  • Dance Party is Elon and Narrah having a dance party around a fire.
  • Exit is just the Programmer sitting in front of a computer.
• Ominous Visual Glitch: Elon and Narrah's skeletons in the game "happybirthday", complete with creepy static.
• Retraux: The games are sometimes in a pixelated style, much like flashback scenes from the series.
• Shout-Out: The Programmer's message in Exit mentions him having played Pitfall!, Space Invaders, and Dig Dug.
• Story to Gameplay Ratio: Fluctuates depending on the game.
  • Happybirthday, Dark Cavern, Banana, Midnight, and Pertinence have simple but involved plots that give clear insight into the overall narrative of the series, while Joke, Unholy Circle and Leak have more abstract plots but do give story information.
  • Of these games, Unholy Circle, Midnight, and Leak are the most like traditional games, with an end goal and win/lose condition, as well as mechanics and obstacles to traverse, while Joke is a puzzle game where you have to use clues from Episode 2 to figure out the right combinations of letters to unlock images. Happybirthday, Dark Cavern, and Banana are more about exploration, and while they do have an end goal of sorts, there is no real way to lose. Pertinence is just you walking from right to left.
  • At the other end is Window, Key, Dance Party, and Exit, which aren't really games in the traditional sense as they offer little interactivity, and have No Plot? No Problem!.
• Surreal Horror: Much like the series, but even more so as there is often a lack of real explanation for the happenings. For instance, Window has you watching a window until the Watcher appears in a mirror, the screen slowly goes to static, and a flashback plays, while Leak has you running from a wall of demonic busts.
• Tower Defense: Unholy Circle tasks you with protecting a village from ghosts. You have to protect the five landmarks while shooting the ghosts and collecting candles.
• Wacky Marriage Proposal: A meta variant in Exit, where typing in the word "murder" will bring up a message from Kris Patrick proposing to his co-creator Alexis Ruiz, waiting for her to come across this in real life. Yes, a marriage proposal as an Easter Egg. She later confirmed she accepted.
• You Bastard!: In Dark Cavern, choosing the Steal ending, which requires you to emulate Bethany's kidnapping of the baby Narrah, makes the game say "You are a monster!"

---

''See you soon.''