Origin: Townsfolk Tussle, a boss-rush board game
Appearance: Patches is a big cat roaming around the town. It arrived from outside but immediately started to get the attention of the town. Maybe because the cat is unnaturally big. Or maybe because sometimes it walks on two legs. For sure when it drags out a knife or whispers something inside a victim’s ear, it attracts a lot of attention. Patches is a weird human “dressed” as a humanoid cat… and actually behaving like one. However, the only purpose of Patches is to rob and act mischievously while hidden behind the cat facade. Luckily, the players can steal pieces of his costume, removing one by one the pieces from Patches board till slowly revealing the creepy human beneath the fur.
Patches’ fight comes with an interesting costume mechanic. Compared with other bosses, Patches has a unique pad with all the costume elements. Once a player wounds Patches enough, they can steal one of the costume gears. Interestingly, the more pieces of costumes are removed, the more you can see the creepy man beneath the costume. Moreover, the players will discover how the different body parts are fake. For example, the tail is a chain, and the nails are knives. However, removing costume elements increases the difficulty of the fight, because now, without the protective fur, chains and knives will hurt much more.
Patches is extremely aggressive and will target specifically those who stole his costume, trying to recover it. Also, stealing the costume creates problems, seems the disgusting outfit can be sticky or full of parasites. Patches is even more creepy because he will often breaks his “cat behavior,” whispering in your ears creepy sentences such as “Give it back to me!” During the final showdown, Patches becomes even more disgusting, throwing up toxic furballs around the battlefield.
Symbolism: Considering how the art-style of Townsfolk Tussle is inspired by 1930s cartoons, Patches symbolizes everything possibly deranged from those animations. Patches is a disturbed individual, a human dressed as a humanoid cat and living like it, while tossing furballs around and robbing people. The furballs also imply that his diet is extremely wrong. This could be, in the best scenario, only because of garbage… or cannibalism in the worst case. After all, in an old animation, Donald was eating roasted duck together with his three duck kids.
Patches is filthy, dirty, and extremely gross, probably never removing his costume. But let’s consider other anthropomorphic animals from animations of that time. What if Mickey was also behaving like a humanoid mouse, living inside sewers and spreading diseases? And this without considering how much “weirdly wrong comedy” was filling those old animations. Another explanation for Patches as a character is the classical example of a “wolf in sheep’s clothes.” In the beginning, the town took a lot of time before acting against Patches, simply tolerating that weird extra-large cat without doing much in regard. And maybe, not even believing people assaulted by that knife-wielding cat.
While reading about Pacthes, I couldn’t stop thinking about a real story. In Japan, a man spent $16K to “become a dog.” Luckily, the price was not for some extreme and unethical surgeries but for a very believable costume. Now the man wears that costume when he pretends to be a dog. Of course, I don’t know if this story influences Patches, but knowing about the possibilities of real Patches existing out there is already enough creepy.
Surreal and Creepy 