Kitty Brawl

Kitty Brawl is a first playable browser prototype for a 1990s-style side-scrolling action game: a robed warrior cat fights cave rats, builds super meter, and faces a rat boss with dramatic cut-in attacks.

The project is currently a lightweight static web demo built around an HTML canvas, pixel-art sprite sheets, and data-driven animation configuration.

Current Prototype

• Playable cat hero with idle, run, jump, melee attack, hurt, death, super activation, and super attack states.
• Rat enemies with walk, attack, hurt, and death animations.
• Rat boss encounter with boss health, rush-in entrance, food hypnosis attack, paper-ball pounce trap, kick follow-up, and random jump repositioning near the player.
• Cat-form status animations used by the boss attacks.
• Long scrolling level with camera follow, tilemap data, processed tiles, and a dark fantasy rat-den background.
• Player super move presentation with a screen-wide cut-in and special background plate.
• Project-local Codex skills for repeating the character, level, sprite-action, and style workflows.

Screenshots

Gameplay	Super Cut-in	Cat Form

Controls

Action	Keys
Move	A / D or Left / Right
Jump	W, Up, or Space
Attack	J
Super	K
Reset encounter	R
Debug cat-form states	0 through 7

Run Locally

This prototype does not need a build step. Serve the repo root with any static file server:

python3 -m http.server 4173

Then open:

http://localhost:4173/

Project Layout

.
|-- index.html
|-- styles.css
|-- src/
|   `-- main.js
|-- assets/
|   |-- characters/
|   |-- data/
|   |-- effects/
|   `-- levels/
|-- docs/
|   `-- screenshots/
|-- .codex/
|   `-- skills/
|-- SPEC.md
|-- FIRST_PLAYABLE_SPEC.md
|-- SCROLLING_CAMERA_SPEC.md
`-- RAT_BOSS_SPEC.md

Asset Pipeline Notes

Most sprite assets are stored as generated sheets with transparent backgrounds, extracted frame PNGs, preview sheets, GIF previews, and pipeline metadata. The main animation definitions live in:

assets/data/player-animations.json

The current level map is data-driven:

assets/data/levels/rat-den-01.json

Project-local skills live in .codex/skills/ and are intended to reduce repeated context when creating new characters, enemies, actions, effects, and levels.

Design Direction

• 16-bit retro pixel art inspired by SNES / Sega Genesis action platformers.
• Dark fantasy rat-den environment with readable silhouettes and high-contrast sprite outlines.
• Combat presentation inspired by arcade fighters, especially cut-in timing for super moves and boss specials.

Roadmap

• Add proper collision tiles and platform behavior instead of purely visual tilemap drawing.
• Expand boss AI with more readable telegraphs and safer dodge windows.
• Add audio for attacks, impacts, boss specials, and UI feedback.
• Add pickups, checkpoints, pause menu, and stage clear flow.
• Continue converting asset generation workflows into reusable project skills.