Jetpack Cat

Overview

In Jetpack Cat, the player assumes the role of an obese orange cat with a jetpack strapped to it's back, and must embark on an epic quest to retrieve the walrus' bucket, stolen in front of his very eyes.  The game is currently being developed by Pragmatic Games, and was originally scheduled to be released on PC in Spring 2009.

Gameplay

Jetpack Cat is a massive series of single screen stages, with a boss & change in visual/musical theme every 10 or so.  The stages usually alternate between shooting heavy and platforming heavy.  The shooting mechanics involve moving an aiming reticule around the screen and spitting projectiles at enemies.  The player has to constantly navigate treacherous terrain and barrages of enemy fire.

The jetpack, the main method of player movement, is powered by cheeseburgers.  The player must fly around collecting cheeseburgers to keep the burgometer full.  Taking enemy fire drains the burgometer, as well as using the jetpack.  When the burgometer is empty, the player dies.  This innovative combination of the life & fuel meters is one of the many things that makes Jetpack Cat very unique.

Graphics

The visual style in Jetpack Cat can be described as photorealistically surreal.  The lead designer has gone on record as stating that he loves designing levels & enemy behavior, but hates the tedium of creating art assets for the game.  To rectify this, he made all of the visuals entirely using lolcats and Google Image Search.  In juxtaposition with a very retro 2d style of level design, this leads to a purposefully jarring look with the graphics.  The game also natively renders in a high definition resolution of 1280 x 800.

Troubled Development History

Unfortunately for the large fanbase in great anticipation of Jetpack Cat, the game was cancelled in October 2008.  Rumors persist that this was due to bankruptcy due to the high licensing cost of the $50,000 bloom lighting engine, but when questioned about it, the lead desginer stated "Yeah, we stated making much better games a while ago.  I haven't worked on [Jetpack Cat] for about 2 months now, and just sort of kept it up as a running joke on the internet.  It was basically a tech demo for me to learn 2d gravity & collision, and bullet curtain mathematics, which I'm now going to use in games that are...ya know...actually good."  After the announcement, reports came in of hundreds of fans across the world, known as Packies, committing suicide due to severe depression.  In more than one case, suicide notes were written with crude grammar & spelling saying such things as "I CAN HAS BETTER PLAEC NAO" and "I R NO TAEK TEH PAIN NO MOER".