Hat Kid, the main protagonist of A Hat in Time, is a human-like alien attempting to collect the scattered Time Pieces, the fuel for her spaceship, so she can return home.
Her real name is unknown, as it's never mentioned in-game, and in the instruction manual she is listed as "Me," due to it being written entirely in first person.
In all respects, Hat Kid looks like a small human child. The only possible difference between her alien species and normal humans is the presence of bones in her ponytail when the C.A.W Agents take an X-ray photograph of her. She dresses in a big, purple shirt with a bright yellow cape sporting a large zipper, as well as white pants and brown boots. She also wears a variety of hats, her favorite of which is a big, purple top hat with a yellow stripe, also known as the "Kid's Hat".
Hat Kid is shown to have an energetic and childlike personality. This is mainly shown through the innocent nature of her voice lines and idle animations. She is also shown to be rather mischievous, especially with the Mafia, such as when she knocks Mafia Goons off of ledges in Mafia Town, or when she stole the umbrella from the Mafia in Welcome to Mafia Town, or when she burned paintings containing the souls of trapped individuals in a fire in order to help a group of Fire Spirits commit suicide in Subcon Forest. Despite this, she is also rather friendly, as shown during Your Contract has Expired in Subcon Forest, when Hat Kid attempts to befriend The Snatcher. She can be shy at times, such as when Mustache Girl asks for her name, or during her idle animation where she stops playing with dolls because she thinks someone might be watching. In contrast, she is very frank and emotive in her diary entries, calling out many people and situations on her adventure as weird or unpleasant.
Ablities
While Hat Kid's move pool is relatively small compared to other platforming games, it is a highly versatile one that allows her to chain together many moves and reach most areas with relative ease and style!
Jumping
By pressing the jump button, Hat Kid will jump into the air. Pressing it again while airborne will perform a second jump. While this is a basic ability in most platformers, jumping and double jumping is the foundation to Hat Kid's impressive platforming skills.
Dive
By pressing the dive button, Hat Kid will dive in the direction she's facing. This briefly increases her speed and can be performed both on the ground and in the air. While diving, Hat Kid can change her direction very slowly. Dives can be canceled simply by jumping, which reverts her back to her walking speed.
Diving in the air will briefly slow Hat Kid's vertical speed and lunge her in the direction she faces, giving her more movement horizontally. Jumping to cancel a midair dive also briefly slows her vertical speed. This allows the player to control Hat Kid in the air on a wider horizontal plane and allows her to land more precisely on targets.
Additionally, if she dives on the ground, she will briefly slide forwards and remain on her belly until the player presses the jump button again. However, if the player presses jump just as Hat Kid hits the ground, she will immediately bounce back up and lunge forward into a front flip, increasing her speed further until she touches the ground. Doing this in rapid succession can outpace the Sprint Hat.
Wall Jump
By jumping towards a wall, Hat Kid will start to run up it, gaining some vertical distance. She can then jump off of it onto a platform or another wall, where she can gain some more height and jump again. If the walls are parallel, this can be repeated to gain as much height as possible. Hat Kid cannot run or jump off the same wall twice in a row. She must jump off of another wall or touch the ground to jump off of that wall again.
If Hat Kid performs a dive and hits a wall, she will bonk her head and fall to the ground. However, if the player has the "No Bonk" badge equipped or cancels the dive before hitting the wall, she will start a wall run instead.
Melee
Press the melee button to perform a melee attack. At the start of the game, Hat Kid will be unarmed, and hitting anything will cause her to hurt her hand and flinch in pain. This also does no damage. Fortunately, during the first act in Mafia Town, Hat Kid will acquire an umbrella as her primary weapon. Hat Kid can string together a maximum of 3 swings with the umbrella at once, with a brief waiting period until she can swing again.
Homing Attack
When airborne above enemies, a button prompt will appear over their heads to let the player know that Hat Kid can perform a homing attack. This allows her to quickly launch herself at the enemy to deal damage and bounce off of them. This is useful for both combat and platforming sections.
Equipment
Umbrella
After the first act, Hat Kid will always have her trusty umbrella, which she can whack baddies with. It doesn't do much else, but with certain badges equipped, it becomes a very handy tool.
Hats
The default hat Hat Kid wears can guide her to the nearest timepiece or goal (although it is not always accurate). Throughout the course of her adventure, Hat Kid stitches together other hats which give her several abilities:
Sprint Hat - Allows running quickly,
Time Stop Hat - Slows time down for a limited time,
Brewing Hat - Involves throwing explosive potions,
Ice Hat - Turns her into an icy statue to bounce off ice platforms and stuns enemies.
Dweller Mask - Makes green see-through platforms tangible, and purple patterned surfaces intangible.
Excluding the Sprint Hat, all of these abilities will need time to recharge after being used.
Badges
Hat Kid can find several badges on her quest that give her unique secondary abilities, such as saving herself from a great fall or lowering the recharge time on hat abilities. Most badges can be bought from the aptly named Badge Seller, but there are some special badges that must be found in the various worlds.
Customization
During each act, Hat Kid can collect Rift Tokens. These are used to unlock either new aesthetic designs for her hats, new color pallets for her clothing and certain hats, and new remixes of songs for the different acts. Rift Tokens can be spent at the end of each act that you collect them in, or at the Token Machine in Hat Kid's Spaceship.
Alignment:Chaotic Neutral (Despite her appearance, Hat Kid is not a necessarily "good" character, she is willing to do whatever, good or bad, to get her Time Pieces back. She has no remorse for killing people if they get in her way, and happily comments when she burned paintings containing the souls of trapped individuals in a fire in order to help a group of Fire Spirits commit suicide in Subcon Forest. Hat Kid has shown to be nice to people and trying to be their friends, though this is likely to get through issues or her own stubbornness)
*Umbrella: Hat Kid's trusty Umbrella, acting as a multipurpose item. Can be used as a weapon to fight the Mafia as she herself can't physically punch them. Can also be used to save herself from lethal falls, and she can equip a hookshot onto it.
Key: Functions a lot like the Umbrella, and can unlock doors.
Baseball Bat: Functions a lot like the Umbrella.
Time Pieces: Pieces that can stop, rewind, and rewrite the timeline.
*Kid Hat: Her original hat, points her to the location of where he time pieces are or the location to go.
Ice Hat: Turns Hat Kid into an ice statue allowing her to fling off of certain areas and makes her invulnerable to attacks.
Brewing Hat: Has Hat Kid brew explosive flasks to throw.
Sprint Hat: Allows Hat Kid's speed to be augmented having her run far faster.
Dweller Mask: Makes intangible things tangible and vice-versa. Can affect enemies in another dimension.
Time Stop Hat: Slows down time to the point where even teleportation seems slow.
*Projectile Badge:
“
Hold and release your attack button for a beam attack!
„
Hat Kid's melee attack now also has a beam attack that can be charged to three levels by holding down the attack button.
Camera Badge:
“
Press [KEY] to take pictures of your journey!
„
Takes pictures with a camera.
Fast Hatter Badge:
“
Significantly reduce the cooldown when using hats!
„
Hat Kid doesn't wait as long to re-use a hat's ability.
Hookshot Badge:
“
Press and hold attack to swing from hooks!
„
Hat Kid can hook to and swing from certain points.
Hover Badge:
“
Automatically pull out your umbrella before deadly impact!
„
If Hat Kid falls from a height that would damage her, umbrella pops out at the last moment to instantly slow down her falling speed and allow her to not take fall damage.
Item Magnet Badge:
“
Automatically attract nearby collectibles!
„
Items such as Pons and Heart Gems will be drawn to Hat Kid.
Mumble Badge:
“
Plugs your ears, now you only hear vague mumbling!
„
Changes all character speech to mumbles. (Note: Despite what the description says via it being a badge and all badges giving Hat Kid an ability this is assumed to just be a joke)
No Bonk Badge:
“
No more bonking against walls when diving!
„
Hat Kid no longer rebounds when hitting a surface after diving, and instead begins a wall run.
Compass Badge:
“
Shows a map towards nearby relics!
„
A small red arrow appears when Hat Kid is near a relic.
Scooter Badge:
“
Upgrades your Sprint Hat to a scooter!
„
Changes the effect of the Sprint Hat, giving Hat Kid a scooter to ride around in. The scooter has excellent acceleration, turning, and can jump.
1-Hit Hero Badge:
“
You die in one hit. Only for the brave!
„
Hat Kid's healthbar is always at one, meaning she'll die in one hit.
Mirror Badge:
“
Dnuora Gnihtyreve spilf
„
Flips the screen resembling looking at a mirror.
Nostalgia Badge:
“
Everything is better when its worse!
„
Reduces the graphical settings so low to make everything resemble a game on the N64.
'Peaceful Badge:
“
Experience Peace and Tranquility whenever you dance!
„
Adds the same filter used on the Peace and Tranquility screen of Death Wish when using the dance action.
Retro Badge:
“
Glorious 2-bit action!
„
Adds a filter to the game that makes everything look like a game on the original GameBoy.
REDtro VR Badge:
“
"My eyes hurt."
„
Adds a red filter that makes everything look like a game on the Virtual Boy.
Weaknesses: Has none of her hat abilities if her hats are removed. Though she's shown to fight through this. Snatcher's protection is only active when she's on a contract, so if she fulfills her contractual obligations he'll no longer revive her. Her current contractual obligation though is being "BFFs" with Snatcher so it's unlikely it'll be fulfilled anytime soon.
Note: While there is a scene where she's initially affected by the time piece breaking it should be noted this is a one-off case asides from every other moment. It could be equally argued that this is just a trait of Reactive Adaptation or Hat Kid being caught off guard.
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