Thank You very much of your deep analyse DepressedToast. I am very lucky to get feedback like this. 👌
I try to answer some of your questions.
I actually have four cats and yea they might have inspired me a bit... (Much) But more importantly the saying "cats have 9 lives" was something I taught after the Game Jam's rewind theme was announced. What if every time player dies there is an option to rewind time and let player choose where to start. And cats' nine lives thing suited well in that idea.
And you know there IS nine lives. 😁 But sadly the first one is taken away straight at the beginning. Black humour maybe, but I taught that was both fun and let me introduce the core mechanic in an intuitive way.
About level 3. That was the second last level I added to the game. At the very end of making the game I let my friend test it out. He did not know what to do on a level where you have to climb up stairs of bombs and grab the food. I decided to make a tutorial level and because it felt a bit easy I put it third. But I forgot I don't tell anythin about the "home" button until next level. And another thing... The name of stage 4 is red & blue. But there was ALREADY red & blue buttons on previous level. 🙈
Haha. I have taught of making an accordion game. 😂 Haven't figured out how to do it yet. Still, at the moment I am well satisfied in just playing video game music with my accordion.
Speedrun video would be awesome.👌 I would love to see that. 👍 What is your YT channel called?