Nori Kuro Cat

By: ithamore

On: June 15th, 2007

<img src=“http://farm1.static.flickr.com/231/551025902_a1aa9c0f0f.jpg” width=“500” height=“374” hspace=10 vspace=10 align=center alt=“Nori Kuro Cat” />

Crostar (translation), the creator of rhacp, submitted another cute and simple platformer, Nori Kuro Cat, for the 13th 3Punge contest (translation), which won 4th place. It is similar to his first 3Punge entry, Supa Kingu Rato (pictured below), in terms of aesthetics and level design. But but this time the main character is a ninja cat that belches fireballs instead of a puffy, pink head that plows through enemies with its pointy ears.

Each shot that scores a consecutive hit increases the range and strength of the cat’s firepower and fills one unit of the 3-level gauge. A miss zeros it out. Once the gauge is full, it slowly drains until the another successful shot replenishes. While at full power, a special burst attack can be preformed by pressing the down arrow and X, which is practically necessary when a wolf wearing a wood mask is hit by fully powered fireball and for finding hidden objects.

After completing the 3 levels of the easy mode, the normal mode is unlocked. However, it is necessary to do more than merely completing the 3 levels of the normal mode to unlock the hard mode, which is the only one with a boss.

<img src=“http://farm1.static.flickr.com/201/551025914_052cbf658a_m.jpg” width=“240” height=“180” hspace=10 vspace=10 align=right alt=“Supa Kingu Rato” />

It is interesting how most of Crostar’s 3Punge entries have evolved as games with a similar look and feel but each with its own unique gameplay elements. The past stages of the evolution in order of release: Supa Kingu Rato, a momentum-building platformer; Sky-Whirling Geo, an auto-scrolling, sword-slashing, wing-flapping platformer; and Round and Round the Tsuchiyui, a difficult, experimental shooter that requires lining up an enemy within the epicenter of the two circling heads to shoot it.

Tangent: entry number 2, Spirit Collect, was a challenging shoot-em-up with mediocre graphics that won third place. Some shmup fans might enjoy it, but I gave up on playing any further than a few games after watching the included replays.

  • Neon

    i R in your base…

    stealing your first posts…

  • http://isadorblog.blogspot.com Isador21

    Almost unlocked hard mode!

  • http://isadorblog.blogspot.com Isador21

    Has anyone completed the game so far?

  • http://ithamore.blogspot.com/ ithamore

    I’ve beaten all three modes, but I haven’t found all the carrots yet.

    ***Spoiler***

    Hard mode can only be unlocked if you collect at least 3 carrots, and there are supposed to be 3 carrots in each mode.

    **Further Spoiling***

    You must find the blue carrots before the red carrots will appear when you play the mode again. Once you find a carrot, it isn’t necessary to complete the mode for your discovery to be saved, so you don’t have to worry about dieing or running out of time. And the yellow carrot will only appear if your score is over 50,000 and if you shoot a yellow block at full power. The yellow block is one of the blocks that can only be destroyed with a fully power fireball; the others are blue and green.

  • http://isadorblog.blogspot.com Isador21

    score over 50000 must mean that you’d have to kill basically everything in the map and then come back to the yellow block real fast?
    Btw I finished hard mode and such
    Red carrot in easy mode was a pain at first but the “boom” special attack saved me

  • http://ithamore.blogspot.com/ ithamore

    It’s easy to get over 50,000 points before the yellow blocks found in Normal and Hard, since they are contained in the second level of each, which leaves plenty of opportunities to kill packs of raging wolves with the burst/boom attack.

    In Easy, however, the block is in the beginning of the first level. I still haven’t been able to get my score high enough and back to it before running out of time.