It's purpose is to help parents and players to get the most out of the game and its inner workings. Features, mechanics, options, you name it!

Existing owners of the original Play With Gilbert may also be interested to learn what has changed and what is new. I hope that the information presented within this guide will be useful!

I've created a stand-alone Discord server for everything Gilbert related. If you need any help, have questions or just want to chat, feel free to join! I discourage kids from participating but if any of them find their way to the server, it's heavily restricted and I will moderate it to the best of my abilities.

JOIN THE SERVER[discord.gg]

Starting a game in Play With Gilbert has been streamlined to be more user friendly. When you start a game you can choose between single player and coop.



After that you will have the chance to customize your kitty if you feel like before you even start the game.



And after that, you can select which level to play. Any new levels that might be added through free updates or DLC purchases should show up in this list. It will remember which level you last played.



The last thing to do before you start playing is setting up a number of options such as showing player icons or turning off seasons for instance. Don't want the time of day to change? Then select static time. It's your show!


NOTE: When SEASONS are disabled you are able to change to any season at any time. The default season is Summer. No seasonal events will happen, this is based on the time of year.

Role Play Mode is a mode that disables a number of features such as the cat bells, or arrows above interactable objects. This is option is there for kids who don't care or are tired of the cat bells and know the game well enough for them to just play around in. Be default this mode is off but can be turned on when starting a new play session.

You can also just continue from where you left off if you press the continue button. It will load up the last map you played, no frills!

Play With Gilbert- Remake has gotten a completely new and improved player customization system with many more options and features compared to the old limited system. Everything has been completely overhauled and recreated from the ground up.

Both players can now create their own unique kitty instead of just player 1 as was the case in the old version. This is a huge improvement and one that me and my daughter have had a ton of fun with. Gone are the days that player 2 could only play as Gilbert, as cool a cat as he is.

Player customization can be accessed during the start game sequence or while playing the game. It can be directly accessed through the pause menu both during single player and coop player sessions.




The name creator system is very straight forward. There's a 12 character limit. Otherwise names will not be shown correctly but in most cases this should be more than enough. The system also comes with a profanity filter. This filter is created to keep the game wholesome for all the many obvious and maybe not so many, not so obvious reasons.




Players are able to alter the way their kitty looks in a lot more ways than ever before. You can choose between a selection of fur varieties, give your kitty a mustache (a personal favorite) and new to the remake, choose between a kitty (default) or a small kitten.




You're now also able to choose an eye color for your kitty, or kitten. These were predetermined in the old game but now you'll be able to choose whichever eye color you fancy! There's a solid selection of colors to choose from.




Hats have always been popular in the old version. So of course they have been brought back but this time there's a much larger and more varied collection to choose from. You can wear a baseball cap, a fedora, headphones, a beanie or a top hat and many more.

Every wearable item now also has a color option and as with the eyes, a large and varied selection of colors to choose from!




Glasses have also returned in the remake but instead of only one set of glasses, there are now 3 different models to choose from and as with the hats, you can choose your own favorite color!




Moods aren't inherently new to the remake. The old version had moods but only the non-player kitties had them. In the remake however, you can select a mood for your kitty. There are currently eight different types of positive moods, well, gloomy might be a little less so but it's still a fun one!




Once you're done creating your own kitty, you can hop right into the game, or continue where you left off and have fun adventures! I tried to keep the system as simple as possible and accessible at pretty much any time, so if you want to swap out a hat, or change a color it should be as easy as pie. We don't wear the same clothes every day and your kitty doesn't have to either!






Now that both players can customize their kitty there may be times where one of the two players are playing by themselves. If that person was playing as player 2 the last time then no worries! You can easily swap between the two kitties without having to alter any of them.

If you were player 2 the last time and are playing by yourself, just click on the Sawp Player button and you can now play as your own kitty. Player 1's kitty will now be set to Player 2. This feature may also be useful if somehow the controller ID's have changed.

Play With Gilbert is designed to encourage playfulness, exploration and role playing within children. Therefore there are no real objectives in the game. However there are so called "soft" objectives. Simple tasks that are completely optional and are never forced upon the player.

The game remembers how many fishies you found when you revisit it, unless you cleared a level and that number will then be reset. How many kitties you've found will not be remembered, only fishies will.

There are three main "soft" objectives the player can choose to accomplish at any time in the game. These are:

NPC (Non Player Character) kitties can be found in every level. They might be lounging in a specific area, walking around or playing with stuff. These kitties can be meowed at at which point they will start following the player around. Some levels have more kitties than others and the challenge is to try and find them all by meowing at them. A counter at the top left corner underneath the player's name will display how many you have found and how many are still left in a level.



Pink fishies are everywhere. There's a good amount of them to be found in every level. There's a counter that lets you know how many you found and how many are left.






Golden fishies are much rarer and more challenging to find. They're either well hidden, or carried by a human. It's up to the player(s) to try and get them. Not always an easy task but also much more fun.







Crazy ninja lady is also back this time, running around with a golden fish. We still don't know where she got it from and why she's running around in the first place but we love the challenge!



By default the player is able to collect an infinite amount of cat bells that can be found in every level. These bells serve two purposes.



Guidance: The first is to act as a guide. the bells are placed in a way that will lead players to interesting areas. It is meant to guide players to places and objects they might overlook and teach them new things that can be done in the game or new areas they can explore.

Unlocks: The second reason for these bells is to unlock special items such as rare hats and glasses. For every one-hundred bells collected a new item will be spawned at the place the last cat bell was collected. More on this in the Rare Items section of this guide.



Cat bells will re-spawn every time the player enters a level. There is no fixed number of bells that can be collected. Once all the rare items are unlocked, the system will switch to spawning a number of different wearable items that are not saved.

TIP: Use Kitty Sense
Kitty sense can be activated at any time to reveal where all the fishies are located or where kitties are hiding. You can see all these even if they're behind walls or other objects.

Cat Bells rewards players with new unique unlockable items to wear. Some of these items are completely unique while others are special versions of standard items. For instance you may unlock a rainbow hat. Rainbow hats change color by themselves. There are glowy and shiny versions as well.

These wearable items can be found within the levels themselves or as a reward when all the unlockable items are collected. Rare items are special for the fact that they can not be unlocked and therefore cannot be accessed through the customization menu.

Rare items however will be saved when the player wears them but they cannot be selected within the customization menu. This adds a level of uniqueness to them and adds purpose to the levels and the items beyond being a simple unlock.

Eat food
Pick up objects
Interact with objects
Create music

Some cars can be driven! A big rotating arrow can be seen hovering above the roof. Simply stand in front of the drivers side of the car and press meow to start driving. Cars have room for another passenger. Players can head to the passenger side of the car to get inside. This way two players can travel together to reach the same destination.



There are a number of different vehicles and new ones are going to be added to the game at some point. You have a standard pickup truck, an off-road vehicle, an exotic race car and even police cars. Each vehicle handles differently. Some cars are faster than others and they all turn slightly different.



The driver of the vehicle is able to switch the view from exterior to interior.



You can honk your car horn as well and if you're driving an emergency vehicle you can turn the sirens on and off. And since there's a day / night system in the game, every vehicle also has functioning lights!

TIP: If you find yourself upside down, just hold down the teleport button to turn the car right side up again.

Gliders can be found within certain levels. Just walk over them and once obtained, simply do a double jump to glide through the air. Gliders are bound to a level and do not carry over from one level to the other. Some levels are just not designed for them and are most likely not fun to use in either.

New to the remake is the addition of a simple and easy to use photo mode, aptly named the "Cat Cam". Players are able to deploy a drone which is equipped with a high resolution camera. You can fly this drone around the levels through a first-person perspective and take pictures of whatever you feel like.

Your kitty will freeze within the level as soon as you deploy the Cat Cam. All the other kitties and NPC's will freeze in place as well.. This way you can take group photos of yourself, your clowder, or whoever you're posing with. Once frozen in place you can position the Cat Cam however you feel like. This makes it a lot easier to take selfies from any angle you wish, even in mid-air. Just snap a shot.



Once you're done with taking pictures you can then view your pictures inside the photo album under the "extras" menu option. Simply open up the photo album and go through all the cool photos you've taken. You can learn more about the Photo Album down at the Extras section.



A cool feature is the ability to apply filters before you take a picture. There are currently 55 different filters to choose from. Each one of them are unique so you can create amazing photos. And because you kitty is frozen you can take your time to choose which filter you want to apply.







The Cat Cam also works in coop mode. Each kitty will be able to control their own Cat Cam, fly around and take pictures.



Player 1 also has the ability to turn off splitscreen while in photo mode. This is incredibly helpful if two players want to take a nice picture together. Instead of having two screens player 1 can switch to a single screen while both characters are in the frame.





The single camera option is only available to player 1 but player 2 is able to turn splitscreen back on at any time. This is to eliminate player 1 being able to pull control away from player 2. Both players have to work together, as with anything in the game, to get the most fun out of doing things together.

If you feel like it, you can also just switch from the on-board first-person camera to an external third-person camera and have fun flying the Cat Cam drone around. The drone comes with a turbo boost, very much like when your sprinting with your kitty.

The game comes with some neat extras. These are features that extend the game's experience in fun, neat little ways.



This is where you'll be able to view all the pictures you've taken. Photo's are automatically numbered in the order you took them and with the filter you applied to it.







Your coop pictures are also stored in the same location.





Photos are essentially screenshots, taken at your monitor's resolution. You can locate them inside the game's Steam folder and are not stored inside the usual Steam screenshots folder.

The default location is this: "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Play With Gilbert\PWG_2020\Screenshots"

The Open Browser button let's you navigate to the Screenshots folder that is created once you take your first photo. The game will open a new folder browser and focus on the folder so you can view the photos through external apps, share them through social media or just for you to look at.

You will be able to swap between 2 gamepads for coop mode or Keyboard & Mouse for Player 1 and a Gamepad for Player 2. The game should now be playable for two players without the need of having two controllers which it is set to by default.

Player options offers a number of important and not-so-important settings you can change, These are player specific making sure that each player can tweak their own ways of playing the game.



Camera Sensitivity Changes the speed at which the camera can be rotated. This can either be increased or decreased which can be useful for gamepad players or mouse players, or both when in coop.

Dash Cam Reset can be turned off for players who do not like their camera being reset when performing a dash.

Big Head Mode turns on big heads, which is a fun little throw back to the PSX era of gaming.

Pixel Mode is another fun little extra feature that semi-simulates the feel of an old PSX game.

Sometimes the game may receive an update that asks you to reset your saved data. These updates are rare but important enough to wipe the old savegame data entirely.

However, other updates may just require level data to be reset. This may happen if more fishies have been added, or something else within a level has changed. Usually this should be fine but if for instance a level clear is not triggered, or cat bell counters are not working properly, this can be used to clear and reset all that so the game can be played properly. This does not change any user settings or customization settings.