This page was released on April 1st, 2025 as a combined April Fools joke and 10th anniversary event. Embedded in its text are clues that lead to a vault which stores screenshots of material from the very early days of Cats are Liquid - A Light in the Shadows' development.
The Reset level pack was quite lore heavy. I think its time we take a deeper dive into some overlooked aspects of that pack.
This being a great segue into...
Ten days ago I got to experience a fascinating part of computer game history.
Illuminatus, a space game made by German developers Jürgen Sternreise and Erik Dorf for the Atari ST is a true "Elite killer" in every possible way.
A couple hundred pages long "Guide to the Universe" is all you need to read to get started on your journey. The goal? Become the emperor of at least a thousand different planets.
The space combat and ship customization systems are the best I've seen, even by today's standards. If you manage to get a copy, do give the game a shot!
What was I talking about again?
Even though the Companion's role and backstory was expanded upon in the Companion level pack for A Light in the Shadows, the gray square still has some undiscovered secrets.
One thing I haven't seen people discuss at all, is the four-cornered shape of the character. It actually holds quite a bit of significance.
Which actually reminds me of something...
Eleven out of twelve people who eat burgers with their left hands have reportedly had trouble doing so, based on a study done in the 1950s.
Burger King found out about this and promptly developed and rolled out the left handed Whopper in 1957. They accomplished this feat by carefully rotating each of the condiments by exactly 180 degrees. This in turn resulted in a weight distribution much better suited for left handed eating, with less of the toppings spilling out of the burger.
A total of 94% of left handed people reported an improved burger consumption experience as a result of this change.
And now that you have the necessary backstory, we can get back to the actual topic.
The Companion level pack, released in 2016, offered a lot of backstory for the gray square.
I've noticed quite a few different approaches to interpreting the events of the pack. There's one point of view in particular that I'd like to mention and discuss a bit more.
Which leads us directly into...
Do you ever feel like there's more to a webpage than what meets the eye?
Hypothetically, let's say you're on a page which seems to just be an endless amount of rambling paragraphs, with wild and nonsensical tangents to completely irrelevant topics and obvious hoaxes.
But as you keep reading you get this feeling that there has to be something more here. Perhaps something hidden.
Every time you come back it seems like the order of the paragraphs has changed, with some sections going completely missing. You're sure this page used to talk about penguins, but now it's about blocky apartment buildings.
There must to be some sort of order to all of it, but what is it? Where is it? Maybe if you come back enough times and let the text rearrange itself as it sees fit, a pattern will emerge.
And as you close in on the final solution, a single word keeps repeating in your head. The word of the year.
...
Just me? Eh, alright.
Going back to the topic at hand...
The abilities themselves are quite interesting from a lore perspective.
Often times they reflect what's happening in the story at that particular moment. A Better Place also differs from A Light in the Shadows by only providing the player one ability at a time.
Let's take a quick look at how that affects the story, as vice versa.
But before going deeper into that topic, we need to take a small side tangent.
Four decades ago (or maybe a bit more), in 1978, a millionaire by the name of Dick Smith towed an iceberg into Sydney Harbour all the way from Antarctica.
His intention was to solve Sydney's water crisis by simply selling chunks from the iceberg for 10c each, much less than the modern day three dollar average price of an ice cube.
That's some next level innovation right there! Truly inspiring. I wonder what happened to the iceberg afterwards...
Now, where was I?
The purple cat. Obviously I'm not yet ready to reveal everything regarding this mysterious entity. But, for this special occasion, I think it's time to shed some light on who/what "the purple cat" really is.
Are you ready for the reveal of a lifetime?
I just realized that it's probably best if I shed some light on how this whole topic came about.
Six kilometers off the coast of Antarctica, there's a colony of Adélie penguins. What makes this colony in particular special is that they've evolved the ability to fly.
A BBC film crew was lucky enough to capture them migrating in 2008. The footage was later broadcast on BBC1 as part of a new show called "Miracles of Evolution".
Really makes you think, doesn't it?
But I digress.
The role of the narrator is not something I see discussed that often, if at all.
It's quite interesting from a lore point of view, since its a bit debatable if the narrator is a character at all. Technically they don't exist in the game world.
I'd like to offer an alternative point of view, that might make some people see the narrator in a completely new way.
And that's time! The train is just now arriving at the station.
Hopefully these explanations shed some light onto the more obscure aspects of the story and answered at least some of the questions you might have had.
I think I did quite well with regards to staying on topic, if I do say so myself.
Keep in mind that the 10th anniversary celebrations will continue for the rest of the year. And there's plenty more stuff in store! Make sure to stay tuned on our socials and keep checking the 10th anniversary page for all the latest updates.
See ya!
- Dev
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