Freak Da Cat 2

Hang on. Forget the menu actually. We've got to talk about this title screen. It's perfect in every way?

Unlike the first game, this title screen actually gives us a better glimpse into what Freak actually looks like. An orange cream-sicle of a cat with a penchant for telling it how it is. For whatever reason (probably because it rules) Freak being a cat who says "Shit!" a lot made the character one of ZZT's more memorable ones. It absolutely defines his personality above all else to the point where back when I was playing the original, I was rather surprised to learn that it's entirely an invention of the sequel.

Here though you can expect it a lot. Crumbling floors, blood-drenched spiked pits, sharp blades, and some jerk with a gun swinging on a vine all make for both a very unique looking title, but also one that's actually fully accurate. "It's that time again..." reads the title screen, as if it were trying to bore you to death when all this cool stuff is contained within!

The original Freak didn't have a lot going for it in the way of story, and the sequel honestly fares no better. It's just a complete rehash honestly. This time though it's at least told through a little cut-scene instead of being stuffed away in pure text form in the main menu. Letting the characters move about, even just as simply as in this scene provide us a chance to learn about Freak a little at least. I only dream of having a life like his. The uh, "chilling around" and "relax day" portions that is. Less so the inept kidnappings.

Even with its very first level, Freak 2 quickly makes itself stand out. Firstly, the levels are considerably larger than their predecessors which took up a large part of the screen to mimic ZZT's own sidebar when displaying the game controls. Secondly, Freak has actually lost some abilities. He no longer can shoot at will, instead requiring a rare and limited power-up to do so. Lastly the visuals are a touch nicer thanks to the addition of some background color.

When working with a platformer like this, the backgrounds tend to be pretty limited to non-existent. You're stuck with nothing but fake walls which really limits the options further beyond ZZT's already limited graphical capabilities. This level is hardly a showstopper of visuals, but just something as simple as dividing the interior and exterior portions of the screen with some black on dark green fakes is enough to make it worth noting.

The first and most important question is "how does Freak control"? The answer is reasonably enough. Freak and the objects the actual player touches are all immediately set to cycle one, a critical component of game-feel that a shocking amount of ZZT engines miss. Freak's vertical movement is fixed. Pressing the jump button will show off a file-tile vertical leap. At any point the player can interrupt the ascent with horizontal movement which stops Freak's upward velocity to move him sideways. All of Freak's actions end with a return to a main gravity loop which tries moving him south if he's not on top of something.

Where things get slightly unusual is in the stat order. The expected order is for the player to be the first stat (this is always the case with ZZT unless you do some real shenanigans), then the objects that issue movement and jumping commands to Freak, then Freak himself to receive those instructions and react accordingly. Whether for coding overhauls in the conversion to Freak 2 or just always the case, MeBo here has the order instead be player ➞ Freak ➞ input. This sounds like a mistake. Something that will lead to Freak feeling clumsy to move around in some way, unresponsive to the player's command, but it actually works great. What ends up happening is you'll be jumping and want to press a left/right button before Freak reaches the apex of his jump. He'll finish jumping when you press your movement key and then on the next tick move onto a platform.

I'm sure it's all in my head, you still have these narrow windows to issue movement, but it feels less frantic despite the amount of time being the same. I found myself climbing ledges a lot more consistently once I realized I just had to press the button in advance. It feels smoother rather than the usual very defined split of finishing the jump component before issuing a movement command.

MeBo immediately begins making life difficult for Freak even if the controls perform suitably. The level is considerably large and there isn't any indication of what anything is. Before Freak even gets a chance to move a small bridge vanishes to create the first leap of faith in the game. Freak can go up to the attic where he'll pass an unlockable door and reach the first of several bags of "Scrops (tm) cat food". I did a bit of searching to see if perhaps "Scrops (tm)" was a real product in the Netherlands or elsewhere and it seems to be fictional. It also must be fictional in that Freak will eat bags and bags of it and not make a mess of the carpet shortly afterwards.

The raw sewage flowing through the home of Mr. I-Hate-Cats is nicely animated and very colorful, in a gross way. Still, it's already showing off attention to detail you normally wouldn't see in these platformers. It's refreshing to have something a little more original than spike after spike after spike. I'm also impressed by how it actually does get to flow through the home , through a pipe, and then pour back. You'll never accidentally fall in to the outside sludge, but I appreciate that the environmental design in it being there.

I'll be providing edited videos for each level here. They're just trimmed to remove deaths and create a roughly seamless trip from start to finish. Freak's levels done flawlessly only take a minute or two. Even unedited, I think only one stage broke the three minute mark. Again this was with saves not normally available, though I suspect that even completely legit most levels would take no more than five, six minutes.

This more proper playthrough of the first board jumps over the collapsed bridge, ignores the lower death trap which contains some incredibly demanding jumps for a first level made entirely impossible by the fact that the platforms begin to collapse when touched, and then heads outside. From there Freak is introduced to an elevator. Again, nothing unusual to see in a platformer by any means, but one that is handled with extra care. A special case in Freak's code is jumped to after standing on top of it which lets him ride up smoothly. As objects can't push other objects, this is a welcome addition to the usual platformer platform where the protagonist must constantly jump and let the elevator catch up to him.

At the same time, Freak isn't locked when riding the elevator which makes it easy to walk right off if you land on it unintentionally. Once he does make it though, it's another jump over some water to grab a key to a uh, force field and some more cat food for the trouble.

The final obstacles consist of a dog pacing around that will result in an instant death if Freak gets too close and a "Jerk" who casually fires their gun to the west endlessly. The opening scene shows Mr. I-Hate-Cats as bright green though every appearance for the rest of the game will be dark green. Still, he also is always announced as such so I guess these jerks are just regular jerks.

The instant death from the dog is a bit much for a first level, and arguably the game entirely since you're supposed to do each level in one go. The jerk is more suited as an early opponent. Freak may not be able to shoot like he could in his first adventure, but he can goomba stomp quite effectively with his claws.

Please just call it a door next time.

It only takes reaching the second level to be genuinely impressed with the visuals! The graphical overhaul is specifically credited to Hydra so he's our man for this lovely snow-capped mountain. While he's limited to working with fake walls Hydra does take into consideration the spaces Freak can actually reach. Once a tile is too high for the cat to venture the fake wall restrictions go away allowing for further detailing.

The bright solids that make up the solid foreground pairs nicely with the more muted STK colors for backgrounds which does a lot to balance good aesthetics with readability.

It's not perfect. Even in this level I thought those two bright green tiles were fake walls at first (which I suspect could be fixed by just making them solids where there's no possible ambiguity for bright colors).

The extra detail in the level design continues with more pipes, giving a reason for why there's water in some places even if going the realism route raises the question of why would somebody want to put water there to begin with.

A properly executed playthrough provides platform perils that do require Freak to jump to get them to keep moving. Here they exist as an obstacle to clear rather than a mode of transport so it works out.

More experiments with extra features include a door that does happily open with some more Scrops (tm) inside.

The button is a weird fake-out. It makes the pipes feel more like an interactable thing in the world for those other than Freak, but I would've liked to see it actually drain the water. There's an opportunity for it to have been a faucet where Freak would have to time opening it with being able to get on the elevator that could have been fun. (Presumably the platform would have started off submerged.) Alternatively, a comedy option where the water drains away only to reveal that there are spikes along the bottom of the reservoir anyway making it moot.

The dogs towards the end were the first real sticking spot for me. They move in a simple back and forth pattern that culminates with them leaping upwards by one tile. I found myself repeatedly getting chomped trying to get the timing right to safely leap over them and have time to move away after landing. I'm just not a fan of enemies that result in instant death when the game has a health system implemented.

Beyond the dogs is a button to open up the path to the final area with some more falling platforms before Freak is free to move on to the next level. It's a safe bet that if Freak ever has to stand on something that doesn't look like a standard ZZT wall that it's an object that is going to fall.

Overall, this second level really shows off what Hydra and MeBo can do. It offers little bits of interactivity, detailed fake and non-fake graphics, and a variety of dangers for Freak to deal with.

Yet more respect for this game as I realize that these levels do have some cohesion to them. Freak is now significantly closer to the mountain seen in the previous level's background.

The original Freak opted to have the down button shoot, with some levels replacing the action with something more relevant to individual levels ranging in absurdity from "Buy/Drop A Hamburger" to "Act Like A Snake". Level three somewhat brings that back with a new climb command which is very strange as it's never used again despite being a pretty sensible action for a cat to perform. It's even more unusual when you try to use it. I figured it was a convenience option that might make it easier to make these safe jumps up the trees by having Freak just climb up and over automatically instead of having to time movement to just before the peak of your jump.

It's not! It's actually meant as a safety measure where if you press the climb button Freak will scurry up an adjacent wall. You're intended to use it for the three floating vertical lines (trees?). This is actually a huge missed opportunity! A climb button really leans into this being a game starring a cat while also providing a perfect in-universe way to make tough jumps a little easier. If you can't quite get the horizontal distance you could climb your way back to safety. In practice, this action vanishes after this level and many of the vertical surfaces here deliberately prevent Freak from taking advantage of this short-lived action.

It's a real shame as I think this mechanic can vastly expand the possibilities for a ZZT platformer while giving it a unique voice. The slower and more methodical Sid's Disaster allows Sid to catch onto a ledge and climb making great use of the idea. Freak 2 could have beaten Commodore to the punch by nearly three years! Instead, I just pressed the button a few times, didn't realize I was supposed to repeatedly press the button, and wrote it off as a weirdly pointless ability in my initial playthrough.

You know what though, Hydra and MeBo may have underutilized the climbing functionality, but the climbing isn't what makes this level so good. I had no idea what these yellow things were until Freak touched one and begin to fly up into the sky riding on a balloon! This is incredibly charming. The balloons are just another special hook for Freak to defy gravity while he holds on to the string. After rising enough you can just move to the side to let go and land. The balloon eventually hits the ceiling and just stops there making it safe for Freak to just wait as long as he likes without fear of the balloon floating off the screen or anything. Additionally, the balloon will pop if the helicopter's guns shoot it. The timing on this is wide enough that I never had it happen to me.

If only I had an "Act Like A Snake" button!

I love the name "Snakey" over just "Snake". This is the cutest level.

What makes Freak 2 so much more memorable than most ZZT platformers is that it keeps doing these little special effects. Not content with a helicopter in the previous level, this time Mr. I-Hate-Cats is swinging around wildly on a vine. The vine moves disjointedly and while it's hardly a realistic looking movement, it's got enough moving parts that it's visual impressive as long as you're not thinking about the physics of a person swinging on a vine.

This level is highly focused on falling platforms with just a few scant safe places for Freak to catch his breath. There's a bit of an optional extra challenge to climb to the very top of the board and grab some cat food, something that's probably not worthwhile as being shot once is all it takes to negate the effort of several short and time-sensitive leaps.

The next little set-piece is this zip-line over some bloody spikes. This is clearly the title screen level. It's a ton of fun actually. This goofy like pi symbol being carried across the screen while some weirdo swings on a vine up above is silly enough that you can't help but love to see it. The authors even went so far as to allow Freak to ride it backwards so you can repeatedly swing about. It's wonderful.

The path leads upward onto whatever this geography is meant to be viewed as. A mean and/or clever fake-out lies just one tile beyond here where there's another vanishing platform atop some fake walls that will drop Freak right onto a spike. There are some visual cues if you're looking closely, though I bet this got a lot of people over the years.

What did get me though was me seeing some twinkling looking white thing in a tunnel with no other purpose. I assumed it was a level exit since otherwise the board just kind of ends, but nope! A fan with deadly spinning blades! The actual exit is indeed in the top right and the lack of a clear goal object isn't meant to imply anything at all. By so much as even attempting to take this path Freak will be automatically sucked in to his demise. It's kind of mean.

One curiosity with this cat is in his coloration. In the original he's represented with a red object. While this is still the case in the sequel, on most levels Freak actually begins as white and then another object quickly repaints him. This of course comes from "Cat Quest" no doubt, where the colors didn't coincide with Freak's. Special levels that are just cut-scenes or different gameplay styles make Freak red from the start.

What's odd though is that later levels are a mix. Sometimes Freak will need a paint job and other times he's good to go, which makes it strange that the already red Freak wasn't just dropped into every level as the code is identical. I suppose it was just an instance of nobody wanting to retype all the code to make a red Freak, and then eventually somebody did, and then nobody wanted to go back and replace all the white Freaks with red ones.

Yesssssss. It's canon. There's a cannon. It's so cartoonish and I can't get over how perfect ZZT's chunky proportions are perfect for this design.

First Freak has to light it by standing under the fuse. There's no time limit, but also no indication that there isn't a timer to get in the cannon so I was definitely trying to move as quickly as possible.

Then BLAM! Right over the waterfall he goes, even maintaining a cannon-ball shape. Again the visuals are looking great with these detailed fake wall backgrounds and a tiny bit of enhancement via animated water along the top row before it actually reaches the drop off. The new objects littering the area of of course springs, making a resurgence from the first Freak and behave as you'd expect with Freak launching vertically into the air higher than possible with his standard jump. An acrobatic feat ensues with Freak bouncing up the waterfall and grabbing onto another zip-line! One final spring sends Freak up into the sky where he proceeds to level six.

As for the message about the launch...

OH HOLD ON. LET ME RELOAD MY SAVE.

The four words we've been dying to hear since the very beginning. Freak unites at last with his old pal "gun".

Incredibly, you can skip getting the gun whose sole purpose is so Freak can shoot at these birds and rocks? I'm not sure what exactly you're dodging here. The objects are named Eagle. That is, both kinds of obstacles to dodge here are called Eagle. What you'd actually refer to as eagles zigzag as they descend to the bottom of the screen while the rock egg things just fall straight down.

These kind of timed dodging sequences show up on occasion in ZZT games where sometimes they go on for far too long or the enemies are way too aggressive. One thing that's been pretty consistent to me is that they're not really enjoyable. Here in Freak 2 just is in the others you can pretty much just pick a spot, park yourself, and move left or right if something is in your lane before moving right back.

But! Freak has a gun. By pressing the shoot button he'll consume one ammo to fire three bullets straight up. Any one of these can take out an object so it's a pretty good barrier that ultimately doesn't matter at all as the sequence is so easy to deal with. I had to actually confirm what happens if you're hit by something and the answer is an immediate game over as Freak's upward momentum is destroyed and he craters back to the surface. So now I'm glad it's too easy of a level.

When the timer expires (a very long feeling minute and change) Freak reaches an airplane that happens to be flying by and makes an impressive landing. I was let down by the "lazy devs!!" routine here. So far this has been a game with some pretty high production values. Even something as simple as having a little arrow shaped object move across the screen and intersect with Freak would've been better. Instead this dialog happens while the enemies keep spawning. Freak is rendered invincible for it at least.

That dumpy little mini-game gives way to this gorgeous looking airplane. Given the restrictions of the graphics needing to accomodate a platform hero, this is really impressive! That kind of curvature in the wing while maintaining a perfectly level surface for Freak to move across is great. The background takes advantage of Freak's limited jump height and looks like your typical well-made game of the time.

This level is a boss fight with some dude who works for Mr. I-Hate-Cats (they all seem capable of handling aircraft). Freak who has a gun can no longer use it. Ever. I will carry my nine leftover ammo into the end cut-scene. And I mean, I get it. Freak 2 isn't designed around Freak being able to shoot. It's just that the first game gets to be abstract about the "shooting". Here though, Freak has a genuine handgun. Just make him drop it on impact with the plane if you have to! $0@$ authors are too lazy to code it...

Just imagine Freak dropping his gun, okay?

The coding here does suffer. This boss will randomly move, shoot, and jump. Freak's only option is to jump better. It's a very silly looking fight. Freak can't be goomba stomped so the bullets are the only thing to worry about. The boss will walk while jumping for diagonal leaps that let them cover more ground. Of course the jumping also means potentially landing on Freak's head. Unlike Freak the boss isn't constantly checking to see if they should be falling so they may levitate on occasion before returning to solid footing.

The hit detection is also pretty busted. The boss only looks to see if Freak landed on their head every at set points in the code. You can really see it in the video when I get them stuck in a corner and cannot get any damage to register. The tables turn at the end though where after landing on Freak's head the boss's own jumps cause them to bump against the ceiling which is recognized as Freak hitting him. It's hardly the worst boss fight I've seen however for a game as competently coded as this one it's a noticeable dip in quality, just hardly something that ruins the game.

Now this one is a beautiful level in its own way. Just a whole lot of spikes that go in and out of the walls. The contrast between them and the plane's red coloration really makes them pop. Again a little care goes a long way. While the spikes extend at cycle one, when they retract they do so more slowly at cycle two which really helps establish that this is your window to make your move.

The final gauntlet at the end is basically a leap of faith hoping the timing works out in your favor. There's a little extra leeway by virtue of cycle two meaning that you might just have your collision happen on an off-tick letting Freak safely pass by a pointy bit.

Undoubtedly this level has the best Freak death. It's so good it's worth capturing on its own.

After that initial spike is a small ledge that moves back and forth requiring Freak to time his jump to land on the tile and quickly move ahead. If your timing is off you fall onto a chute, the little red light turns bright green, and Freak is unceremoniously jettisoned down below!

Goodbye Freak.

The big cartoonish fall is captured here with Freak plummeting back to the ground and flattening against it for a moment. Freak 2 does a really nice job with making things feel cartoonish with a surprising amount of squashing and stretching of Freak. That little bomb bay on the plane would've been a great opportunity to give Freak a Wile E. Coyote-esque moment of realizing the ground is gone before gravity takes hold.

Back on the ground the game returns to its more typical style. We can still see that mountain in the background. As for the rest of the level, the painted scenery oddly vanishes leaving the bulk of this stage looking like it takes place against a void.

Unlike the cannon from earlier, this time Freak actually does find himself in a race against the clock. A button frees a pusher/slider based platform that forces Freak to quickly climb up and then drop down onto before it moves away. Pushers do move at a generously slow cycle four, so even with just nine ticks maximum to reach the left edge of the raft there's adequate time. The width of the raft makes timing Freak's fall more generous and while I definitely fell into the rapids a bit, it's not really frustrating to hitch a ride.

Afterwards there's this long twisty elevator section. This isn't the first time Freak's encountered elevators of this style which move on their own. Here we see Hydra and MeBo deal with the lack of a way for Freak to pass over the elevator objects by having them slide into a small groove turning them into a basic timing challenge where Freak needs to jump while the elevator is in its pocket. The next elevator is more of a horizontalator and just paces left and right. It still elevates though, but not Freak, just the difficulty. By being over water now Freak has to do a much more tight trust fall to safely land on the platform and immediately move off of it before it dunks him into the water below.

The path continues with Freak nabbing yet another elevator before dropping down a chute and moving to a safe spot where one last elevator awaits. Since objects can't push objects Freak has to jump with these platforms to be able to climb up. It's important to manage your jump height by attempting to move to the sides though as a spike at the top means Freak will be stabbed if he's not careful.

Up ahead a combination of falling platforms and a moving platform keep Freak moving before another chute drop onto another falling platform. This in turn leads to the final gauntlet of a rapid climb up to a shooting enemy who can either be hopped over or stomped if need be.

There's a good amount going on for this level, but nothing that stands out as being uniquely Freak rather than something that you'd expect in any other ZZT platformer.

"Cabine"? I mean, that's the Dutch word for cabin apparently but it also seems weird to me to have a cabin hanging over an abyss.

Time for another boss fight! This one is more of a puzzle than the one on the plane and it's a very decidedly ZZT thing to do. Freak has a giant chasm to cross and no way to do so. His gun is gone and he's under a hail of gunfire.

So of course the solution is to run across the top of Mr. I-Hate-Cats's gunfire. This is a wonderfully ZZT design to use projectiles as platforms. It also works surprisingly well for a good challenge. The gun does move in a fixed pattern, though it's a pretty long one with variety in how many bullets are fired before the gun moves, enough that you'd have to put in some effort to memorize it. Gaps in the bullets when the gun moves mean opportunities for Freak to fall in and plummet to his doom and the farther out into the firing pattern you get the more sporadic it becomes which behooves you to hurry up and cross as quickly as possible.

It's surprisingly good!

Once Freak does manage to cross the gap he can pull a nearby switch causing the cabin and part of the cliff to collapse, sending Mr. I-Hate-Cats into the abyss with a very satisfying farewell message.

Okay, I get it. There's a mountain. Don't get me wrong, this board still looks nice. It's just that we cannot escape this mountain for very long.

Unsurprisingly for a level named "Platform Panic", this one is all about navigating various moving platforms. Vertical and horizontal. It's all here. The small white horizontal lines move up and down letting Freak get close to the horizontally moving boulder-looking platforms. In the meantime a sentry on the wall is repeatedly firing across the board. The bullets won't be fatal if Freak is shot though they can interrupt jumps if you're not careful. It feels like the game is beginning to run out of steam a bit. There just isn't anything here that hasn't been seen before, and while it's a combination of existing things that's well executed it feels like things are winding down. Levels like this feel a bit too generic rather than appropriately Freak-y.

Err, mind the half second of a blank screen at the start of this one. It's fine afterwards.

This is what I'm after. There's a new element to play with, fireballs that move in set paths, often orbiting platforms. Again I wish Hydra and MeBo were more willing to make things merely harm Freak rather than outright kill him. It does make for a more challenging level as each of these pits has a button Freak has to press in order to open up the exit.

Where the level doesn't get things right is in the latest jerk. This one seems to be operating a gun that would fit right in on the set of American Gladiators, a show which I'm now desperately hoping has some early 90s ZZT fangame. For some reason, they don't actually shoot the gun unless Freak steps on one of the two two triggers on the pillars that divide the pits. Sure the first attempt you won't know that that's what the buttons do, but if you die in this level after realizing they're a bad thing it's trivial to leap over them on your next attempt.

Of course, even if you do activate the gun, it's positioned in such a way that Freak is almost never in any danger. This kind of design might potentially work in a scenario where the player has a choice of say dodging dog enemies or taking a path that activates the gun. Then there'd be something to consider. Here you just get to trivially nullify what's already some very limited danger.

Thanks to the fireballs being an instant kill this is still one of the most difficult levels overall. Escaping from the pits sometimes requiring landing on crumbling platforms only adding to the challenge further.

You can also defeat the jerk at the end with a jump. The gun will keep firing regardless, not that it matters by that point.

The penultimate level pulls out all the stops. A large button that Freak has to press both in the sense of "he needs to open the door" and "the level layout means it can't be avoided" sets off the nastiest trap yet: a row of drilling spikes! You're expected to really have a solid grasp on how Freak moves at this point in order to outrace the spikes, survive the ascent and safely escape.

Now this level takes on the title of hardest. It still feels very fair. This is not a series of perfectly timed jumps to make an escape in the nick of time. There's some margin for missed jumps that keep it tense without feeling insurmountable. The slow speed also means slow response times leading to some thrilling near misses at times when you're falling behind but aren't killed and get a moment's opportunity to keep going. It's a fun race that will take plenty of tries before you actually get out alive.

It makes an awful noise though that I gave in and muted the game for. Big Oktrollberfest vibes here.

It also has this very strange scroll in it. While it is true that because the drills simply destroy anything in their way, Freak or otherwise, that there's no proper game over, the board size shouldn't have anything to do with that? It's also not even a big board! It clicks in at just over 10,000 bytes out of 20,000 which is about middle of the road for the levels in this game which have all functioned without memory issues.

The lack of a game over is also a really easy fix here by simply added an object that loops over #if not any red object #send dead to detect when Freak has been "erased" as it were.

Once you're past the drills, you're still not quite home free. There are a few more little platforms to jump across which are easy leaps but end up feeling tense as one mistake here means redoing the drills (if you're not [capable of] saving mid level). After that though, it's smooth sailing into the final confrontation with Mr. I-Hate-Cats.

Of course he survived the fall.

Like the previous encounter, he is operating on a fixed pattern of considerable length. Like more than 100 lines of moving, shooting, and checking to see if Freak landed on his head. It gets to feel even more random than the machine gun from earlier as this time you can hurt him in the middle of his code and force it to restart. The start of the pattern also deliberately avoids checking for being jumped on, giving him a crude form of invulnerability frames after Freak does land a hit.

Despite the large amount of space to move around in, Mr. IHC mostly sticks to his corner, coded to try and move east far more than any other direction. There's a good reason for this though. While Freak's pounces elicit an "Ouch!" after landing on top of his foe, the real impact is that bridge beneath them slowly begins to crumble.

It's a very weird looking bridge actually when you stop to think about its two tiered design and vertical wall in the middle of it. It does make for a nice scenic arena though with the background finally abandoning the mountaintop for a river running through a wooded valley below. At the very least it definitely establishes the heights this is taking place at better than the chasm from the previous boss fight which was an unfortunate void level.

Mr. I-Hate-Cats is caught in the collapse of the bridge section (after all he won't move left enough to not be), and Freak is thankfully frozen in midair so the player doesn't have to worry about suffering the same fate.

The game ends because it decides to. Obviously this isn't Mr. I-Hate-Cats's first time falling from large heights. There's no reason for it to necessarily be his last.

This is not a real complaint. Freak Da Cat 2 is a perfectly reasonable length and I'm just being pedantic.

Credit to the two, their King's Quest ZZT 2 project was finished. Just eight months later than expected.

There's no real epilogue here. The game has come to a complete stop. Freak can go back to having a relax day until that fateful day he runs into a Mr. I-Protect-Mice. A starry night sky appears unobstructed with the lettering popping in before a looping game over message plugging the companies the game is attributed to. It's not a deep ending, but it is an end.