Super Puzzled Cat Interview: Penguin Mug Games Talks Inspirations, Development, and Unique Playstyles

Precision-based perilous platforming – along with countless save states – will be at one’s disposal when Super Puzzled Cat launches for Steam on January 13.

Gamers Heroes recently spoke with Penguin Mug Games on Super Puzzled Cat’s inspiration, its intricate development process, and how one can play their own way – read all below!

Super Puzzled Cat Interview: Penguin Mug Games Talks Inspirations, Development, and Unique Playstyles

Gamers Heroes:

In today’s gaming space that features waypoints and handholding a-plenty, we greatly appreciate Super Puzzled Cat’s save state approach to platforming! 

Penguin Mug Games:

The save states really tie the whole thing together. I really wanted to explore what a game designed around save states would look like, and that’s where the original idea of the game came from. I quickly realized that if you have save states, the challenge of the game would have to come from puzzles.

This is where the items come in—in a normal game, if you use an item in the wrong spot, you’ll get stuck—softlocked. In Super Puzzled Cat, you just reload to your last save state. This opened up the game to be full of experimentation.

Gamers Heroes:

Kaizo Mario World comes to mind, but what else inspired this direction for Super Puzzled Cat?

Penguin Mug Games:

I had a lot of inspirations! Originally, it was just looking at retro games, and how people were playing them with save states where they were unintended. So the thought came up: what if they were intended? What if something like Ninja Gaiden really wanted you to use save states? What would that mean?

I played The Incredible Machine as a kid, and I’ve always loved putting lots of things together to get to a solution in an unexpected way. Braid is another inspiration as well, in the indie platformer space in general, in addition to having a game built around time mechanics.

There’s other things that pop up in the bonus levels, too! Having a ton of individual levels allowed for doing a little bit of everything.

Gamers Heroes:

On that same note, the retro gaming community is truly fantastic – actually met some members at a local event this past weekend! 

Penguin Mug Games:

Platformers, fighting games, and arcade games are all so much fun, aren’t they? It’s a great passion to share.

Gamers Heroes:

There’s PR for sure (thanks The IndiEXP!), but how else are you getting the word out about Super Puzzled Cat to those who live and breathe 16-bit?

Penguin Mug Games:

I think my favorite personal thing is the series of comics we have up on Twitter covering Puzzled Cat’s everyday life. Stalkeralker, the artist for the game, has been drawing them and they’re amazing. Highly recommend checking it out.

Gamers Heroes:

One of the things that drew us to Super Puzzled Cat are the sheer amount of abilities the player has at one’s disposal.

Penguin Mug Games:

I wanted to make lots of abilities to keep things fresh, but I also wanted to have abilities that all work together! What happens if you have a jetpack and gum? How about a gravity flip and a shooting star? How about all four? The duplicat item, which suddenly gives you a copy of your character to control, is an extreme example of this—now you have to handle twice the cat, each with their own inventory!

It might not seem missing at first, but I wanted to make Super Puzzled Cat not have a lot of the common things present in platformers. There are no enemies (mostly…) no switches to press, and so on. It’s just you, the items, and the level—so they have to do some heavy lifting! It makes for some really unique gameplay.

Super Puzzled Cat Explained!

Gamers Heroes:

How has the development of Super Puzzled Cat evolved over time?

Penguin Mug Games:

I powered through a prototype version pretty fast. It had 90 levels, a lot of items, and it was playable.

Level design takes a LOT of polish, I’ve found, especially when you’re trying to make fun puzzles. None of the original 90 levels survived, though bits and pieces of ideas from the levels were reused here and there.

I also wanted to tie it into a complete game. I had the basic idea for the endings pretty early on, but refined it bit by bit. There’s also tons of bonus levels that turn the game mechanics upside-down, which help show the game’s full range. In a game about save states, you got to explore those save mechanics in full, for instance. This led to ideas like the Cat Shop.

Gamers Heroes:

Super Puzzled Cat features over 150 levels with multiple endings – we’re impressed! Even Super Mario World had 96 exits, so that’s going even further beyond.

Penguin Mug Games:

Puzzled Cat’s bite-sized levels came from putting together all those different item combinations!  The ones that are in from playing tons of different combinations and picking out my favorites. Just a lot of sheer play, tinkering and working at it. Tons of instances of “Oh, but what if this?” It was so much fun to make I never really questioned how big it was, though it did take quite some work to polish!

Gamers Heroes:

The press page mentioned that Super Puzzled Cat’s been carefully developed for nine years – what are some of the key insights you’ve discovered when it comes to carefully tailoring each stage?

Penguin Mug Games:

The first prototype of the game didn’t have the optional gold coins; it was just about reaching the goal. Adding additional optional challenges really added a lot to the game and helped to make the game suddenly non-linear, and really respond back to how you choose to play it.

Also, you really do have to throw away a lot!  Keeping the things that are fun and clear takes trying things a bunch of times.

Gamers Heroes:

One of the unique elements that Super Puzzled Cat states is that players can “play their own way.” 

Penguin Mug Games:

One thing that I wanted is for the save states to be optional—if you’re a stubborn enough precision platformer player who wants to restart a lot, sure, you can do that!

The optional collectibles are great for if you want more puzzles, and things hidden beyond screen boundaries or in odd places are there if you want to look around and explore. There’s also challenges for speed and more, too.

I love the idea of games as a sandbox to play in—rather than being a game telling you how to have fun, it’s more of an interactive toy where you can have fun with it however you want. This is also why you can freely skip around your current level and such too.

Gamers Heroes:

Without spoiling too much, what are some of the most unique ways playtesters have gotten through some of its levels?

Penguin Mug Games:

Some memorable ones to me personally are when I overdesigned something and a playtester did something extremely obvious, like just walking to the level exit.

One of my favorites was exploiting a physics engine bug—the gum used to slowly give you a very tiny amount of extra height on the bounces, so one person just left the game bouncing for an hour to clear a small gap.

The best clever solutions also helped me make some very tricky placements for some of the optional challenges! Some things, like coin placements or hidden postcards, come directly from me seeing unexpected solutions from playtesters. The vending machine in world one is a great example here; you’ll know it when you see it.

Super Puzzled Cat | Release Date Trailer

Super Puzzled Cat can now be wishlisted via its official Steam page ahead of its January 13 release.

Want to try before you buy? A free demo of Super Puzzled Cat is also available via the Steam page!

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