Cat Bait is another new take on the survivor-like genre about a cat running away from rats

Another new take on what Vampire Survivors and Brotato made popular? Yep. Cat Bait is out now in Early Access and there's a demo available too.

Much like all the others there's plenty of randomness, and lots of running around collecting something (coins in this case) to upgrade abilities. However, the idea here is that you don't have any abilities directly. Instead, you hire helper cats that stand on top of the walls that use their abilities to help you dodge all the rats and other nasties out to get you. As the name suggests, you're just bait.

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Features:

• Unique Helper Cats: Each helper has its own special abilities and characteristics. For example, summon the Druid Cat to slow down enemies with roots and deal periodic damage. And who said you can summon only one helper?
• Upgrade System: Upgrade your helpers during each run. Increase damage, add more projectiles, and unlock other unique upgrades for each cat.
• Meta-Progression: Collect coins from defeated enemies to upgrade your character and helper cats between runs, making each new attempt more powerful.
• Skins and Abilities: Unlock new skins for the Cat Bait that not only change the appearance but also add new active abilities. For example, the standard skin allows repelling enemies.
• Epic Bosses: Fight unique bosses, like the mouse rider on a rat. Each boss has its own set of moves and attacks, making each battle unpredictable.
• Interesting Locations: Choose from various locations, each offering its own challenges and variety of enemies. Start with an empty character and choose your first helper cat to begin the adventure.
• Session Gameplay: Short gaming sessions make it easy to jump in and out of the game, continuing from the same wave you stopped at.

Basically, if you've played any of these single-stick arena fighting survival games, you'll generally know what to expect. It's only a small twist on it with the helper cat system, where you need to choose carefully and then keep upgrading the few you have to hopefully survive to progress.

You can find it on Steam. It has Native Linux support.