Logo of the game, featuring Snowball and friends
Pixel Cat's End
is a browser-based game in which users can manage a village of cat-like aliens. It has been in beta since February 19, 2022. It was developed solely by Squid.
The game begins with a sequence of comics about Nestor, the moose guardian, inviting not-cats to join them on their native planet of Not-Earth. Players can then create a custom not-cat and roll for a random "squad" of five other not-cats. From there, players can complete daily activities: Visiting Nestor, feeding their not-cats lunch, sending their not-cats to complete day jobs, and daily scenarios where their not-cats can socialize. Players can also Adventure, bringing their cats on a journey fraught with hostile creatures, rough terrain, and even other not-cats.
Rather than genders, not-cats have four possible "winds": North, South, Trade (a mix of the two), or Null. These winds determine which not-cats can breed, as well as their coloration, but do not have any bearing on pronouns, which can be changed at any time. Not-cats can develop relationships and have baby beans together. There's a genetics system to determine the traits of the baby beans, the subject of much player study.
Pixel Cat's End contains examples of:
- Added Alliterative Appeal:
- The shops Whisker's Wares, Peppa's Patterned Fabrics and Prideful Paws Clothiers.
- The Typo Turmoil forum thread used to report typos.
- The 2022 April Fools' Day trinkets' names, such as Notorious Noodle Named Ned and Sneaky Snoodle of Slowness.
- Aerith and Bob: There's a wide range of names in the generator, from "Willow" to "Devil Ray" to "Tall Cat."
- All There in the Manual: There's a set of tutorials explaining several game features, as well as the Item Database which lists how to obtain every item in the game.
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: The Adventuring enemies come in fun color varieties, like rainbow leaf mites and bright blue snakes.
- An Adventurer Is You:
- The Tank: Guardians get extra health, and the Guard ability lets them take damage for their teammates.
- The Healer: Medics.
- The Status Effect Guy: Scouts calling their team to action and Bards using Hiss and Rally.
- The Jack-of-All-Trades: Multiclassed cats can have all sorts of abilities, but only the bonuses of one class.
- And Your Reward Is Clothes: You can get various clothes from adventuring, including scars, wooden armor and bucket hats. High rolls in daily jobs can also reward clothing items.
- Animal Facial Hair:
- Lakeweed Beards, available in three color varieties.
- The moustaches from April Fools' Day 2023.
- Animals Not to Scale: Averted, Squid confirmed that the decor is in fact to scale.
- Anti-Frustration Features: Nestor is guaranteed to give one cat every week, even without consecutive log-ins.
- April Fools' Day:
- On April 1st 2022, a set of worm trinkets were released, each with a -2 effect on a different stat.
- 2023 had moustaches on every cat. Player also received two as clothing items.
- Artistic License – Biology: The "Watercolor" coloration is completely made up.
- Cat Concerto: In Scenario number 82, two not-cats have an option to sing compliments at each other about their Friendly And Eternal Affection, which just sounds like screaming to everyone else.
- Character Level: Cats can gain levels from Adventuring and from their day jobs.
- Color-Coded Elements: The magic system's Aspects, the "Winds" and the personality types all have a unique color attributed to them.
- Conlang: Not-cats have their unique in-universe language and writing system.
- Cooldown: 89 days between partners having beans.
- Creature-Breeding Mechanic: While the game is explicitly not meant to be a breeding game, the breeding and genetics system is very popular.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: As of writing this, skills' place cannot be changed manually and all skills are arranged in a predetermined global order. This means a skill like Scratch that's on the left-most slot will be replaced by the stronger Bite that'll end up being on the right-most slot.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Defeated enemies can drop their associated decor that can be placed alongside not-cats in sceneries.
- Elemental Powers: Many of the upcoming Aspects are element themed. These include Flora, Growth, Magma, Sea, and Frost.
- Extra Eyes:
- Nestor is surrounded by giant floating eyes. A switch in the profile page lets users turn this off.
- Juvenile Corrupted Maples are trees covered in eyes
- When Ascending a cat, an optional feature will be adding eyes.
- Everything's Better with Rainbows: The rare variants of many enemies in adventuring.
- Everything's Better with Sparkles: Some resources have sparkles. It's hinted they have magical properties and could be used in alchemy.
- Fictional Holiday: There is four seasonal holidays in the game, though only two have been released so far.
- Fluffy Fashion Feathers: Feather pendants, feather tailpieces, feather scarfs!
- From My Own Personal Garden: Not-cats eat food grown at home, in the village gardens.
- Gotta Catch Them All: There are several sets of Collectables obtainable through daily jobs, adventuring, and traveler letters.
- Green Thumb: Jobs include Gardener, which yields flowers, and Herbalist, which yields herbs. Farmers can also create plants.
- Human Aliens: Not-cats look extremely similar to real cats, with only minor physical changes.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: A wide variety of snacks are available to restore health during Adventuring.
- In-Universe Marketing: The site is funded by user-created ads, some of which are for onsite businesses like the Post Office.
- Item Crafting: The Crafting workshops allow users to craft a variety of recipes for each unlocked job.
- Item Farming: Possible through Adventuring, though there's a cooldown to prevent farming the first, easiest area over and over.
- An Interior Designer Is You: Sceneries allow you to put buildings and all sorts of decor on a variety of backgrounds, in addition to cats and enemy sprites. The buildings do not show a fourth wall, allowing the interior to be decorated like a doll house.
-
LGBT Fanbase: The lack of a gender binary and pride items make the game very appealing to LGBT players. - Money Sink:
- NPC shops.
- Buying extra scenery slots.
- The Open Marketplace, with its 5% tax on all sales.
- Non-Heteronormative Society: Instead of genders, not-cats have four possible winds, which are not at all correlated to their pronouns. Not-cats can have as many as four partners, or no partners at all, and they are not limited to partnerships that can produce offspring.
- One Size Fits All: All clothing items can be put on both adults and kittens, and clothing will grow with the kittens as they age.
- Palette Swap: The Adventuring enemies come in a few different color variations, as do most clothing items.
- Palette-Swapped Alien Food: Snowmeowtoes resemble tomatoes, except blue instead of red.
- Platonic Life-Partners: Best friendship is treated as exactly as important as romantic partnership, both being the final stage of relationship evolution. The only difference is that best friends won't have beans.
- Player-Generated Economy: The Open Marketplace allows players to buy and sell items, and the Cat Recruitment Board allows players to buy and sell cats. Private trades and gifts allow for direct transactions between two players.
- Play Every Day: Averted, deliberately. The game is designed so you don't get punished for taking a break.
- The Power of Friendship: In adventuring, the closer the cats in the party, the more damage they do with critical rolls.
- Power-Up Food: The daily luncheon provides bonuses for daily jobs and Adventuring.
- Punny Names: The NPC duo Raine and Bow, rainbow, running the pride themed shop.
- Queer Colors: Prideful Paws offers clothing patterned after several pride flags.
- Rapid DNA Test: The Family Tree item instantly reveals a not-cats genetic string.
- Rare Random Drop: Business cards from Adventuring, which spawn a new cat in your village.
- Ridiculously Cute Critter: Newborn kittens, called tiny beans in-game... the tiniest beans ever.
- Status Effects:
- Call to Action: One extra die for the party.
- Rally: Two extra dice for the target.
- Block: Improved dodge die.
- Protect: Two extra dodge die.
- Guard: All damage is redirected to the Guardian.
- Hiss: Lose two dice on all roles (Shocked condition).
- Afraid: Reduces the target's dice.
- Hide: Improve dodge die twice.
- Virtual Paper Doll: How clothing cats works.
- Virtual Pet: The game is about virtual pixel cats you can raise, feed, dress up, take on adventures and so on.
