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 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...
Eight years after the previous release for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Google released Google Maps for the NES in April of 2012.
Smartphones are still, even to this day, quite expensive. Adding support for the NES brought online maps to a huge number of households that were previously stuck using those paper maps that are impossible to fold back properly.
It features everything from just browsing the maps to step-by-step navigation instructions. And of course the most important thing of all: an amazing chiptune soundtrack that perfectly captures the feeling of a traffic jam adventure.
What was I talking about again? Right...
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.
But before going deeper into that topic, we need to take a small side tangent.
Nine hour downloads for modern video games are ridiculous, right? We all agree on that?
Fortunately, CD Projekt Red came up with an ingenious solution to this problem. Cyberpunk 2077: Floppy Edition was released on over ninety thousands 3.5" inch diskettes. 97 619 to be specific.
Given CD Projekt's origins as distributing games on CDs, it actually makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
Let's get back on track.
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?
Speaking of which...
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...
But I digress.
Lumi (that being the name of cat you play as in both games) has some additional bits of lore that, while written down in the official internal story documents, haven't yet been revealed to the public.
Fun fact: the name "Lumi" isn't actually mentioned in the games. That knowledge is exclusive to the world outside the games. It seems fitting to continue this tradition, and reveal something more about Lumi in the same manner.
Which actually reminds me of something...
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!
Sorry, that was a bit of a weird tangent. Let's get 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.
This being a great segue into...
Two is probably one of my favorite numbers. So many of my own personal favorite games have the number "2" in them: Half-Life 2, Portal 2, Half-Life 2: Episode 1, Portal 2: Peer Review, Half-Life 2: Episode 2, Portal 2: Sixense MotionPack, Half-Life 2: Lost Coast, and of course: Team Fortress 2 which Reddit actually bought from Valve back in 2013.
Or at least that's what Reddit thought. It actually went the other way around, with Valve buying Reddit by sneakily changing the documents while they distracted Reddit's legal team by having one of their employees launch a squirrel with a t-shirt cannon directly onto the meeting room window from across the street. Wild stuff.
Lesson of the day: the business world can be quite cruel. Especially towards squirrels.
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.
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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