Kiki Adventures 0.2.0: a new world, boss weapons and thirteen lives

October 28, 2026

Kiki, a chubby white cat, next to the Lantern, a tall brass lamp glowing orange, with towers and clocks floating in a twilight sky

0.2.0 is the biggest change the game has had so far. The campaign keeps its shape, nine stages and eleven fights on a single route, but almost everything you run into along the way has been replaced: the world, the names, the art, the music, the weapons and the rules of each stage. Here's what changed.

A universe of its own

Kiki is a chubby white cat and the last Warden of Meridian, the world that keeps time for the whole galaxy. Wardens travel in the Lantern, a brass lighthouse lamp that folds itself through the Long Hour, the corridor between moments. Kiki's tool is the Paw Emitter, a resonance cannon strapped to one paw.

The one unmaking history is the Maker, an engineer who decided that living things are badly designed. He builds armies out of the ruins of dead eras and plants them through time. The Lantern drops Kiki on a wreck orbiting a dead world, and from there she follows his trail to the end.

The nine stages, in order:

The Driftwreck, an orbital station adrift above Cindra, a dead world.
The Assembly Spire, a vertical factory ship that rebuilds the living into machines.
The Kettle Front, a world at war, all trenches and bunkers, held by a legion of cloned beetles.
Selene Hollow, on the surface of the Moon, with the Earth on the horizon.
Copy Town, a perfect seaside town where it's always morning, built by shapeshifters.
The Inkwell Archive, a library whose ink came alive and eats light.
The Hush, a quiet facility of tally-marked walls where things are forgotten.
The Orrery, the clock workshop of Tock Malvane, a Warden who sold the Maker time.
The Last Hour, the Maker's citadel at the end of time.

The stage select screen: a single route of nine stops, from 01 to FIN, with the first stage, The Driftwreck, selected

Kiki on the Driftwreck, an abandoned station in orbit

Kiki on the muddy ground of the Kettle Front, facing a green beetle trooper

Every boss leaves a weapon

The Paw Emitter is still Kiki's own weapon, charge shots and all. What's new is that every boss you beat leaves its weapon with you, nine in all: Arc Spark, which jumps from one target to the next; Rivet Driver, which goes straight through; Shock Mortar, a lobbed shell that bursts; Cryo Lance, which freezes ordinary enemies solid; Mirror Shard, which bounces off walls; Lumen Orb, which homes in; Echo Ring, which fires forwards and backwards at once; Gear Saw, which flies out and comes back; and Chrono Spiral, a three-way spread.

Each weapon has its own energy bar. It refills completely at every checkpoint and every time Kiki comes back after a fall, and the energy you pick up goes to the weapon you have equipped.

To pick one, open the pause menu and go to WEAPONS. It's a grid with everything you have so far, and it works with a keyboard, a controller or touch. If you don't want to stop, you can switch on the fly: two keys on the keyboard, the shoulder buttons on a controller, or the weapon button on the touch screen. Since the shoulder buttons now belong to the weapons, switching abilities on a controller moved to LT.

The WEAPONS menu: a grid of ten slots with the Paw Emitter and the Arc Spark unlocked, the rest still locked, and the description of the Arc Spark below

One weakness per boss

Every boss is weak to the weapon of some other boss. The right hit does double damage, knocks the boss out of the attack it was winding up and shows WEAK! on the screen. Brood-Marshal Varga, for one, really doesn't like rivets going through her shell.

No weakness is ever required. You can win every fight in the game with the Paw Emitter alone, and there's an automated test that checks it. The weaknesses are there for anyone who likes to experiment. If you'd rather skip that part, the player guide has the full table.

Kiki faces Brood-Marshal Varga, a four-armed green beetle commander with a mortar on her back, in a dark bunker arena

The first fight: Kiki against Bastion, a four-legged siege walker

Thirteen lives

Wardens are said to have thirteen lives, so Kiki starts every campaign with thirteen. Each fall costs one, and she comes back at the last checkpoint. When all thirteen are gone, the Lantern rewinds: the lives all come back and you continue from the start of the stage. Anything you already collected stays collected.

New Game+ fills the thirteen lives back up, and Boss Rush doesn't count lives.

Every stage has its own rule

Every stage has a mechanic of its own, and the game always warns you before it bites:

The Driftwreck: low gravity on the open hull, and decompression gusts that push Kiki sideways, always after a warning.
The Assembly Spire: conveyor belts that carry you along. A jump always gets you off.
The Kettle Front: artillery shelling. Listen for the whistle, look for the mark on the floor and get out of the way.
Selene Hollow: lunar gravity outside the domes, so you jump high and fall slowly, and meteors that warn you first with a flashing shadow on the ground.
Copy Town: the tide, which comes in and goes out on a schedule.
The Inkwell Archive: ink that drains your special energy whenever you're far from the light of the lamps. Your health is never touched.
The Hush: blackouts, always announced before the lights go out.
The Orrery: gear belts that turn around on the beat, with a tick on every flip.
The Last Hour: a bit of everything you've made it through so far.

Selene Hollow: Kiki on the surface of the Moon, under a black sky

Kiki in Copy Town, facing Ossa the Many, a pink shapeshifter covered in faces

The Inkwell Archive, where the ink has come alive

The Orrery, Tock Malvane's clock workshop, full of gears

A short film before every stage

There are ten short films, about fifteen seconds each: one when the game starts and one before each stage. They show where Kiki is headed, who's waiting for her and what to watch out for. The subtitles are in your language, and any button skips the film.

A scene from the Selene Hollow film: Kiki next to a dome on the Moon, with the subtitle "Outside the domes you jump high and fall slowly."

New art and music, in fifteen languages

Every sprite, background, effect, sound and piece of music was made again for this world. The game also speaks fifteen languages now, each in its own script and with all of its accents: Portuguese, English, Spanish, French, German, Indonesian, Russian, Hindi, Bengali, Arabic, Urdu, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai.

The main menu of Kiki Adventures: Thirteen Lives, with FEEDBACK as the last option

If you played an earlier version, your save still works. Progress, collectibles and settings carry over, Kiki gets the weapon of every boss you've already beaten, and you start with thirteen lives.

Feedback from inside the game

There's now a feedback form in the game itself: FEEDBACK in the main menu and SEND FEEDBACK in the pause menu. Pick whether it's a bug, a suggestion or something else, write a title and a description, and send it. Email is optional, only if you want a reply, and sending the stage you're on is up to you as well. If you close the form halfway, your text is kept until you send it or discard it.

The site got two new pages to go with it: support, with what to do when something goes wrong, and the privacy policy, which explains exactly what the form sends and what I do with it. The game still has no accounts, no ads and no tracking.

The SEND FEEDBACK form, with fields for category, title, description and an optional email

Where to play

For now 0.2.0 is only with the closed beta testers, on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, iPhone, iPad and in the browser. If you got an invite, the beta page has every download and the browser version.

The Android version is being prepared for Google Play, but it isn't published yet. I'll post here when it's out.

Thanks to everyone who's playing and sending messages.

Topics 0.2.0

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