Hat Kid

"Mafia look at little child. Mafia see loser."

Hat Kid
Species:	Alien
Role:	Protagonist
Voice actor:	Apphia Yu

"I'm a time traveling explorer! No area is too dangerous for me and my umbrella. My mission is to find all the time pieces so I can go home!" —Manual Description of Hat Kid

The main protagonist of A Hat in Time, Hat Kid 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 the instruction manual lists her as "Me," due to it being written entirely in first person.

Description

Physical Appearance

Hat Kid appears to be a small, human child. 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.

Personality

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. 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.

Gameplay

For a full list of controls, check the Controls page.

Hat Kid can navigate terrain using traditional platformer mechanics such as running, jumping, and wall jumping.

Abilities

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 preform 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 Cap in speed.

Wall run and 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 also can't run or jump off of 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 preforms 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, so don't go fighting anyone just yet! Fortunately, during the first act in Mafia Town, Hat Kid will acquire an umbrella that will be used as a weapon throughout the game. 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 prompt will appear over their heads to let the player know that Hat Kid can preform 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

Hat Kid wearing a variation of the Sprint Hat.

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

Throughout the course of her adventure, Hat Kid stitches together many new Hats which give her several abilities, such as running quickly, throwing explosive potions, and turning into an icy statue. 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.

Trivia

• According to her diary, Hat Kid does not like singing.
• There was supposed to be an adult Hat Kid. However, this was cut from the game. There has been much speculation on the matter, but so far, no one has found any information about her.
• Apparently, Hat Kid has a bone in her ponytail, as seen in her biology image.