Wind-up cat
Free · play online in your browser, no download
A turn-based puzzle roguelite: a stray cat and its tiny wind-up robot, which copies every move you make mirrored, break into a vacuum factory to free the caged cats.
Official site korusagi.itch.io, verified Nov 3, 2026. The developer's own itch.io page (korusagi), linked from its official Jamference: AI Game Jam Hack 1 submission page.
Where to play
Every platform this game is on. Links are checked against official sources; we never host or mirror games.
- Play free — itch.ioitch.ioReleasedFree
Plays in the browser on itch.io. No download.
Browser (no download) · Mobile · Official link verified Nov 3, 2026.
About Wind-up cat
A turn-based puzzle game with roguelite runs in which a stray cat and its tiny wind-up robot break into the Vacuum Factory to rescue every caged cat inside. The robot rides on the cat's back until you step on an outlet; then it hops off and copies your moves mirrored, with up and down the same and left and right flipped, so you use it to hold pressure plates, push crates, cross lasers and flip switches while the cat squeezes through vents and cat flaps. Every cat you free joins a line behind you, and if a vacuum touches any cat in the line you lose a life. There are five tutorial rooms, runs over three floors (Living Room, Junkyard and Factory) with random dark rooms and upgrades between floors, a boss fight against the Vacuum Master, and a Rhythm Mode in which every step has to land on the beat; the cats you save gather in the Cattery and unlock new upgrades. Following the jam's restriction, walking is the only input: you start a run, pick upgrades, choose the language and even restart a room (by bumping into a wall five times) by moving. The developer, Italo (korusagi on itch.io), designed the game and says Claude (Claude Opus 5.5) built it through conversation and wrote all of the code, drew every sprite and synthesized every sound in code, and wrote an automated solver that checks every room can be solved. It was made for Jamference: AI Game Jam Hack 1 (theme: Cat and Robot) and is free in the browser on itch.io, with arrow keys or WASD on a keyboard or swipes on a phone, in English and Portuguese.
How it was built
Partially verifiedThe developer's jam answer: “I designed the game and Claude (Anthropic, Claude Opus 5.5) built it with me through conversation. There's no game engine and no imported assets: everything is a single HTML file.” It says Claude wrote all of the code from the developer's design and feedback (the turn-based puzzle logic, canvas rendering, Web Audio sound effects and music, the roguelite run structure, the rhythm mode and the English/Portuguese translation), drew every sprite in code, synthesized every sound and the music loop live, and wrote an automated breadth-first-search solver that plays every room to check it can be solved; a bot that presses keys on the beat also played through Rhythm Mode. The page art (cover, animated logo and background) was drawn from the game's sprites by code Claude wrote. The original idea is the developer's; Claude helped refine the loop. The answer does not say whether the chat app or Claude Code was used.
- Developeritch.io page, AI usage: “Code: the whole game (turn-based logic, canvas rendering, Web Audio sound and music) was written with Claude (Anthropic) from my design.” Credits: “Code, procedural art & sound: Claude (Anthropic)”. — itch.io
- OfficialJam rule 1: AI must genuinely be part of the build (code, art, audio, writing, design or a live system), and entrants must say what they used and where. — itch.io (dg)
The developer designed and directed the game and tested it; Claude built it through conversation as a single HTML file with no engine and no imported assets. All art (nine cat coat patterns with walk, sit, paw-licking and sleep animations, the robot, the vacuums and the boss) is drawn by code, and every sound and the music loop are synthesized live with Web Audio. When the solver Claude wrote found a room that could not be solved, the rules were changed (one-way cat flaps, single-use outlets, and letting the cat walk through its own line) rather than guessed at. No AI runs in the game. The font is Press Start 2P (OFL).
- Engine / framework
- None (single HTML file)
- Languages
- JavaScript
- Team size
- 1 (solo)Developer Reporteditch.io (Jamference: AI Game Jam Hack 1, hosted by dg)
- Initial build time
- Not disclosed
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“Code: Claude wrote all of it from my design and feedback”Verification notes: Gameplay, features, controls, credits and AI use from the developer's itch.io page (status Released; HTML5; genres Puzzle and Adventure; AI disclosure ticks Code, Graphics, Sounds and Text) and the answers on the official Jamference: AI Game Jam Hack 1 submission page, both re-read on 5 Nov 2026. The itch.io page shows no publication date; the release date is taken from the jam page, which shows the game was submitted 5 days and 8 hours before the 9 Oct 2026 07:00 UTC deadline, i.e. on 3 Oct 2026 (UTC). The developer is named only as Italo (itch.io account korusagi); the team list names that one person for design, direction and testing, so team size is recorded as one. The answers credit Claude with all of the code but give no percentage, so no AI code share is recorded; the model (Claude Opus 5.5) is quoted as the developer writes it, and the interface (chat app or Claude Code) is not stated. The Portuguese text on the page is marked with a Brazilian flag. Jamference (2 to 9 Oct 2026, theme Cat and Robot, restriction Movement Input Only; 36 entries) has published results: #21 overall (score 3.515) from 11 ratings, with Fun (#12) the best placing and Use of AI #20. The single-file browser build was checked for calls to AI services and none were found. itch.io shows no public rating and no download count. Location is not stated. We did not play the game.
Development history
Submitted to Jamference: AI Game Jam Hack 1 (theme: Cat and Robot), 5 days and 8 hours before the deadline.
Jamference voting ends (07:00 UTC); results: #21 overall out of 36 entries, from 11 ratings.
Game performance
Each figure measures something different — concurrent players, owners, downloads and sales are never interchangeable and are never added together. Labels show where each number comes from.
itch.io
Free in the browser (HTML5); arrow keys or WASD, or swipes on a phone.
Not publicly available: itch.io rating, Gross revenue.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Not currently ranked.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wind-up cat by korusagi itch.io | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Wind-up cat for Jamference: AI Game Jam Hack 1 (submission and results) itch.io (Jamference: AI Game Jam Hack 1, hosted by dg) | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| Jamference: AI Game Jam Hack 1 itch.io (dg) | Official site | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
