Rise of the Gorecats
SURVIVE OR DIE TRYIN!!
Welcome to downtown Catsburg, where the neon bleeds from the very sidewalks and the critters bite back. Mad packs of murderous Gorecats have taken over your city with the single purpose of wreaking havoc and havoc. You are private investigator Mitch Birman, a veteran of Vietnam and the owner of a trunk full of guns with a personal vendetta against the little punks who’ve been terrorizing your streets.
Development of the EMMY-winning StudioNX, creators of the arcade classic The Videokid and authors of BAFTA-winning game Endling: Extinction is Forever, Rise of the Gorecats is a hellishly frenetic top-down shooter of sheer retro chaos with modern roguelite sensibilities.
My Experience
After some 1 hour of gameplay, I had to leave with a smile on my face. There’s something wickedly fun about taking these crazy, gremlin-like mutant cats down. The mix of gore, color, and chaos is nostalgic and fresh.
The pixel art, created by Adam Rakić (also online as Wackorama), is simply stunning — gritty, dark, and neon-drenched. Every explosion and animation oozes personality. Catsburg is alive, deadly, and ridiculously cool.
The music, Pavle’s head-banging chiptune metal compilation, keeps the adrenaline going. It’s quick, it’s loud, and dead on for the game’s visual style of breathtaking destruction.
Yes, I did run into some bugs — including one laugh-out-loud moment when I glitched into a shop window and couldn’t escape — but honestly, I just laughed. It’s alpha chaos, and it kind of does belong to the world of Catsburg.
Combat is fast and punchy. Firearms like the M16 and the bone-rattling M60 are solid and satisfying, and dodging and grabbing ammo makes every run tense. The procedurally generated levels guarantee that no two plays will be the same, and every death just begs you to get back in.
Gameplay Overview
Genre: Top-down roguelite single-player shooter
Core Loop: Survive, loot, upgrade, die, repeat
Controls: Controller, mouse, or keyboard
Mission: Cleanse Catsburg — wave of Gorecats at a time
Top Features
Fastest, high-action survival ever — slash, stun, and shoot out waves of rabid Gorecats!
Grab ammo, medi-kits, and coins to upgrade your guns and stay alive.
Shoot signature ‘Nam-era guns of Mitch, including the M16 and M60.
Fight through a Neo-Noir pixel-art hell designed by Adam “Wackorama” Rakić.
Thrash to a heavy-metal chiptune soundtrack.
Procedurally generated chaos — each playthrough distinct, each death permanent, each return to battle legendary.
The Developers
StudioNX is a UK-based, EMMY award-winning development group responsible for The Videokid, cult classic retro-arcade nostalgia throwback, and narrative co-conspirators on Endling: Extinction is Forever, the award-winning environmental adventure game. Described as having whimsical storytelling and nostalgic but slightly anarchic mix of nostalgia and anarchy, they apply that same creativity to Rise of the Gorecats.
Adam Rakić (Wackorama), the pixel artist of the game, is a Serbian animator and digital artist whose style blends gritty cyberpunk imagery with cartoon energy. His art provides the game with its personality — violent, colorful, and inescapably fun to behold.
