Cataractae
One hero is chosen to make their journey to deliver the Purifying Gem to the shrine high above. Navigating through the tricky platorms, waterfalls, and festering darkness will prove difficult, or so the Elders say. Luckily, the Gem allows its bearer to float, so that even a surface dweller can navigate through the unforgiving landscapes and ancient temples.
Reach the Shrine, lest the lands be swallowed in Infinite Darkness.
CONTROLS:
- Left, right arrow keys / A, D: Move
- Up arrow key / W / Z / K / Space: Jump, float
- Down arrow key / S: Interact, ???
- Escape / P: Pause
- M: Mute
- Q (while paused): Quit to main menu
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
This game is amazing. It might be my favorite of your games even, though Sunken City and Project Amidst are still on the way. I am a huge fan of your games and this platformer is perfect. I've gotten the secret ending at least 5 times by now, and there's not one thing I can think of to criticize about this game. It is truly a masterpiece.
I want to preface this by saying: I love this game so, so much. Platformers are my favorite genre of games and Cataractae is the perfect, almost too hard but not quite, engaging, fun, and unique game. I would (and will) play again, 10/10. Thank you so much Ferociter for creating this masterpiece, I hope you keep on imagining and creating!
(there's a spoiler down below for anyone searching for the secret ending!)
Couple thoughts:
I had trouble seeing the character and had to zoom in on the screen which then made it so I couldn't see the whole screen. Maybe just make them bigger or zoom in the camera.
I would love a death counter to be somehow implemented, as well as maybe a timer. These could be turned on it the settings, similar to geometry dash perhaps, idk. I'm sure I don't want to see the 1000+ deaths I had but it would be another thing to compete with others over.
The music could also use some work, specifically for the secret ending section. I know it's difficult to create a repeatable, quality track, as well as with the type of game it is, but if you come back to Cataractae for any reason, something different would be much appreciated
Otherwise, I love Cataractae. It was a perfect length and difficulty, just getting to the normal ending was a blast, taking me an hour or two, but when I stumbled onto the secret ending, I almost cried. After spending another 4+ hours on the secret ending I got the satisfaction of knowing that I had not spent half a day on nothing :). I've played most of your games, and so far this is by far my favorite. Thanks again Ferociter for making this wonderful game!
Spoiler:
To enter the secret ending, there are 2 different switches you need to hit:
The first one is in the bottom left shard area. In one of the sections where you have to fall down, dodging around the black goo, at the very bottom right there's a hole on top of the wall. You have to save enough boost to make it.
For the second, you have to go to the building where you are introduced to the moving water clouds. It is is about east of the building where you're introduced to the pink dots. At the top of the room there is a hole that you have to make your way into.
The secret entrance is right next to the entrance to the normal ending of the game inside the shrine. As you go up the small water clouds, at the top one hold left and you will fall into a small gap on the left wall.
From there, expect to have to suffer through increasingly difficult challenges for at least a couple hours. I wish you the best of luck.
Awesome, more feedback's always appreciated.
The character's small for thematic reasons. But it's also just zoomed out so you can look further ahead. But more on that below.
More Cataractae is present down the pipeline. I'd like to make a sort of remake of the game that improves on everything: better graphics, hugely increases the amount of content, remixes the existing level design, and yes I'll have another crack at the OST as well. My knowledge of music theory is microscopic though, so we'll see. Anyway, lotsa cool new areas and it'll finally be time to reveal the world's lore.
A death counter and time played statistic do seem appropriate for such a project.
A prototype exists, and while the character stays the same size, the window is much bigger (fullscreen, ideally). Concretely: the visuals in the original are upsized 2x since it's pixel art, the remake will be upsized 3x.
This is on a very distant horizon beyond Cursed Travels: Sunken City and Project Amidst though, sorry!
Thank you for playing!
True Yurtse7en i am stuck,i just need one stupid sheckpoint
That game is amazing!
It was a great game, the only problem is the game suddenly got too hard at the end. The ending felt rushed. <3
will you add a controller support? It's more familiar to me to play a platformer with a gamepad.
I mostly like this game and it's mechanics so I think that people should play it
The controls were great, and the overall game atmosphere and difficulty level were wonderfully balanced, making it a lot of fun from start to finish.
I love the eerie look of the elders!
I've quit this game a few attemps, but finnaly I've finish it and great game!
I always come back to play this game. Very excited for the sequel!
great ! I specially loved the final
Amazing game!
I actually beat the game on cool math games and I’m replaying it on itch.io
Looking forward to beating this game again! (It isn’t everyday you find such a good game)
Edit: omg I’m so rusty! 20 minutes in and I’m stuck at the portion after the 2nd temple (the one which introduces the moving rain clouds in case i remember wrongly)
Second edit: haha, i was just stuck on that one part! Finished the spore temple and doing the platforming sections to the next temple! (Wow, moving darkness Mold thingys!)
Third Edit: yes!!! I reached the elders! Time to get the 3 pieces and the secret ending… i thank the elders for their offerings (or whatever it was called, i forgot)
4th edit: YES WESTERN GAUNTLET DONE
took a while, but i'm at the secret ending!!!! final guantlet
Simple art, yet aesthetically pleasing, simple mechanics, yet challending, beautiful game, though the final checkpoint is a bit long
Got really close to beating the game, but it gets brutal by the end lol. I really hope you make a sequel, and I hope you make a sequel to amidst the sky too! :D Keep coding!
Amidst the Sky's direct sequel got decently far into development (see: old blog post). As of now it has about twice the content as the entirety of the original.
It'll be a while before I continue that though, as I'm working on some smaller projects and finishing Cursed Travels: Sunken City first.
Cool! Looking forward to all your new projects. You're a great coder and you have a bright future. I hope you have a good day!
Just wanted to say I absolutely love this game! The game is difficult without being frustrating, the art style is beautiful, and the level design is very creative. Especially the secret ending, seriously gave me some Celeste vibes in terms of difficulty (but that might just be me being bad with a keyboard). I'm very excited for the remake!
Have you ever thought about making a sequel to this game?
Yes, a remake with way more content:
- Tweet with visuals
- Tweet with some thoughts
Sidenote: the background you see in the first tweet is the background that took me the most time to make ever (so far).
Excellent game. Very, very intuitive with very little text on screen, pushes mechanics very far without compromising on the approachability of each room. Apparently there’s a secret ending, but i reckon i need a lot more time to find it.
Does any of you guys know where the right half is?
nvm I got it
WOW this game is basically perfect. Incredible level design, fun mechanics, nice ambience. Great job
i would make people pay money for this game
it's hard. it's fun.
Once again we need to save the world with hardcore playforming😄
There's a typo in the shrine.
Great game as always!
just replayed it again for the same ending :thumbs_up:
Last section with the water column with mold going up it is way too hard
I take it back, every part behind that sealed door is too hard
And please don't make it any easier
hey man you should try the secret ending, It's wayyyy harder
Maybe someday but for now I’ve been trying to beat Just One Boss Hard Mode Hitless
Guess I liked it ;)
same i liked the funny explosion of the big fungi
Also, Can you please add a checkpoint here
EXACTLY
That part took me about an hour
Same, but I did it eventually - it would be great to have a checkpoint
Hi Ferociter! Just wanted to say, what a simply amazing game this is! Not too long, not too short. difficult, but not impossible and beautiful designs!
The inner sanctum is evil, especially the part with the big rotating mold bar and the keys. Had fun though.
yeah
are you talking bout the secret ending
No, the main ending is easy for me now, I don't know where the secret ending is. I know there is a pu maualuga i le puipui agavale o le malumalu i totonu (translate from samoan --> english for potential spoiler) but I don't know how to get there
well first you need to find 2 secret artifacts and then to go the hole on the left wall past the doors then do some extremely hard jet platforming
(spoiler below)
first one is at the bottom left main door artifact. You need to get to the grass area and get in the hole on the left wall
second one is in a hole at the top of one of the temples you use to unlock things (I think it was the moving water clouds one)
then you go to the shortcut unlock in the door temple and go up the small water fountains then jump off to he side on the last one to get in.
the rest is up to you, your skill and your persistence.
Dang it I knew there was something with that grass area but I didn't know what... Thanks I'll try this out
you are welcome fellow gamer
10/10 game, pretty nice platforming.
What an experience this was. Fantastic game! I think something that might get looked over, but proves just how great you are at game design is that from each checkpoint if you reset or died you could almost immediately jump back into the challenge. It didn't start the cycle of obstacles in an awkward space where you had to wait 10 or 15 seconds before you could actually start playing again. I look forward to seeing more great things from you. 5/5
Hm... At first I though it was strange that the secret levels Supposedly didn't give you anything even though it did. but then I realized that those signs were not from the dev, but in fact from the elders. Hm...
nwod uoy tel annog reven pu uoy evig annog reven say this in reverse
If Cataractae had a bad ending:
The Darkness Mold kills the Hero and the Hero never lives again
Darkness Mold is overgrowing
The world is swallowed in Infinite Darkness
The message of the ending will be:
The world, not protected by the Gem, failed to save the world from the Darkness Mold.
The world is swallowed in Infinite Darkness for a very long time.
uhh small mistake i think it's
The hero, not protected by the Gem, failed to save the world from the Darkness Mold
Let's go!! After using a walkthrough to get the hidden keys, I got the secret ending. That whole section was insane!!
man you used a walkthrough? I just tried to go into openings to see if i could break the game or escape the map for an ending but, instead I found a hidden thing so I decided to search for them and honestly, I thought there was 3 one for each key but it was just 2 :|
solid jetpack mechanics, but i died about 400 times on the death elevator in the final temple
Which one? The one where you move slower than the block so you have to go to the side and wait?
Hey I play this on a laptop and for some reason when i enter the water makes my game lag very hard and sometimes even makes the tab reload itself. I was wondering if it’d be possible to add a remove particles option or something similar. It would be very helpful. thanks.
p.s. If the creator of this game reads this, I want you to know that you should be proud of your work as it is the most entertaining “flash game” on the internet.
I'm alarmed to discover from the comments that the bonus challenge rewards a different ending, because I would have wanted to achieve the normal ending first, and started the bonus challenge on the understanding that there really was no reward (as was stated at the start). Now I'm partway through the bonus room and I really don't want to lose that progress, so (I assume) I'll never see the normal ending unless I lose the progress or replay the whole game.
Other than that, phenomenal as always. Does feel a bit too linear to be called a "metroidvania," the same way Amidst the Sky did; even though you're technically backtracking for collectibles, you generally know exactly where to go and it's very driven toward progressing in those few directions. (I realize now it wasn't you who called it that, actually it was Bart Bonte. But the point stands.)
Don't worry, contrary to Amidst the Sky and Drifting Among Worlds, there's a way to get (warp, perhaps I should call it) back after you've seen the Secret Ending.
Oh OK nice, thanks for letting me know! Now I can continue to die repeatedly on the laser part without concern.
yeah, no he continuado el juego por causa de este nivel especifico
I know I Spent 30 minutes trying to beat it