The Sick Kitten
One of the earliest narrative close-ups in cinema was pointed at a kitten. One hundred and twenty-three years later, it got a ticker.
Sixteen rooms to the sunbeam nest. Free in the browser.
Left of the lobby
The Picture House
Fourteen free browser games, ten silent-film picture books, an hourly meme reel and a portrait studio. No account, no wallet, nothing to buy.
Take a seat →Right of the lobby
The Ticker Room
The back office: live price, every wallet holding the coin, and a block-by-block reading of the launch — including the parts that do not flatter it.
Read the tape →A cat, a spoonful of medicine, and an accident of genius
In 1903, British filmmaker George Albert Smith shot The Sick Kitten in Hove, England: two children playing doctor to an unwell kitten, spooning it a dose of medicine. Partway through, Smith did something almost nobody had done before — he cut from the wide shot to a close view of the kitten's face, then cut back out again.
That single edit is now considered one of cinema's earliest true close-ups: not a magnifying-glass gimmick, but a camera cutting closer to follow the action itself. It's the technique every film since has borrowed, applied first to a cat lapping "fisik" off a spoon.
Wide
Close-up
Wide, again
The actual 1903 print
This isn't a recreation. It's the real thirty-four-second short, preserved and held in the public domain, digitized and hosted by the Internet Archive. Press play to watch the exact cut that made history — wide, close-up, wide again.
Source print: Internet Archive — "The Sick Kitten" (1903), public domain in the United States (published more than 95 years ago). Not affiliated with George Albert Smith's estate or any rights holder.
A fresh frame every hour, struck in 1903
The projector never stops. Once an hour, on the hour, a brand-new meme of the sick kitten is developed — a fresh scene, a fresh intertitle caption, aged onto sepia film stock with grain, scratches and sprocket holes, and stamped with the $SICKKITTEN mark. Nothing is ever removed, so the reel only grows.
Every frame is its own shareable card: post it to X, copy the link, or download the print. The branding travels with the picture, so it stays a $SICKKITTEN frame wherever it ends up.
Every number, read straight off the chain
Behind the screen there is a back office with the tape running. It holds the live price and pool, the full holder table folded down so one owner counts once however many accounts they spread across, and a block-by-block reconstruction of the launch itself — who bought in the opening seconds, who was bundled in with whom, and who is still holding any of it.
It is deliberately unflattering. The room reports what the chain says, including the parts a project would rather leave out, and when a figure cannot be read it says so instead of printing a guess.
- Price
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- Change · 24h
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- Market cap
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- Wallets holding
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- Supply locked
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The kitten gets out of the frame
The Sick Kitten is now the master game. Enter the picture-house world, build a Kitten Passport, earn Kitten Stamps through play, collect digital items, and explore the foundation of the shared game universe.
The first release is free to play and deliberately has zero token transactions. The Mercantile is open as a collection preview; shopping is not open yet.
There is a game, and you can play it here. The workshop holds the released browser build, all six chapters of Alley Cat — an evolving playable picture — and a separate film that stands the same alley up in 3D.
The aim is a cat sandbox pitched squarely between Stray and Little Kitty, Big City: climb like an athlete, shove things off ledges like a menace, wear hats, talk to the neighbours — all of it shot on 1903 film stock, with the errand from the original short. It starts as one alley and one bottle of fisik to carry home, and widens from there: a whole street, the roofs above it, premiere night, a block of neighbours who trade in wreckage, and a house climbed from the cellar door to the chimney pot.
There is a second picture, and it is not about climbing anything. The Long Road takes The Oregon Trail's shape and lays it over the London turnpike out of Sussex in October 1903: a family walking Biscuit fifty-eight miles from Hove to the Royal Veterinary College because the apothecary has run out of ideas.
Outfit at the start, pick a pace and a ration, and roll a day at a time through Pyecombe, Handcross, Crawley, the Mole and the Thames while the road takes wheels, ponies, food and people off you. The difference from the original is what is in the cart: the fever is a clock that runs whether you move or not, fisik only holds her, and the poorest family scores three times what the richest one does.
There is also a smaller picture, and it does not end. The Nursery is a pocket virtual pet built out of the premise of the original short: the kitten is unwell, and somebody has to spoon her the fisik. Feed her, wash her, put the lights out, teach her to sit, and she grows from newborn to elder over days — whether or not the tab is open.
Past the close-up there are six more windows on it: a company of up to six cats to keep and breed, a nickelodeon of three arcade shows that pay in coins, a commissary, a prop box of outfits, a set you can repaper and furnish, and a ledger of records and honours. It runs entirely in the browser and saves on your own machine — nothing to install, no account.
Frequently asked
Is this affiliated with George Albert Smith or the original film?
No. The Sick Kitten (1903) is a public domain film held by the Internet Archive. $SICKKITTEN is an independent, unaffiliated tribute project built around it — not endorsed by any rights holder or estate.
What's happening with the game?
The released browser build and all six chapters of Alley Cat are playable in the workshop right now — an evolving playable picture with the climbing, mischief and curiosity of a kitten loose in the city, on 1903 film stock. The sixth chapter is one house climbed cellar door to chimney pot. The full shot list and devlog are on that page. The 3D film has now started too: The Operator is the first alley stood up, with a locked-off camera that cuts like a 1903 operator instead of following the cat. Separately, the nursery is a finished pocket virtual pet — keep the sick kitten fed, dosed and entertained, and raise a company of six.
Is the game connected to Stray or Little Kitty, Big City?
No. Those are the two games it's openly inspired by, named as influences and nothing more. Stray is by BlueTwelve Studio and Annapurna Interactive; Little Kitty, Big City is by Double Dagger Studio. No assets, code or content from either game are used, and neither studio is affiliated with or endorses this project.
Help the kittens outside the picture
The 1903 kitten became part of film history. Sick, injured, abandoned, and unowned cats still need veterinary care, rescue, shelter, sterilization, and safe homes every day.
Our independent charity reel points directly to established organizations working around the world. Donations never pass through this site, no token purchase is required, and no listed charity is presented as a partner or endorser.
There is also a coin
$SICKKITTEN is a memecoin on Solana — the house ticker. The Feature, the Workshop games, the Meme Reel and the charity directory all work without it. Contract address, supply and lock figures, the holder table and a block-by-block reading of the launch live in the Ticker Room. The house is built so play and picture come first; any future on-site use for the token (including experiments in crypto gaming) will be announced there when it is real — never implied before it ships.
The ticket
Official Solana contract, in full:
9HVopsrj35ZawKYGJUHRmenKaVxKb7PJnQfjgArypump
Contract page · Ticker Room · Solscan · GeckoTerminal pool
Not financial advice. Check the whole address before any swap — the middle is where a fake diverges.
$SICKKITTEN is a memecoin. It is not an investment product, buying it is not a donation to charity, and nothing on this site is financial, legal, or tax advice. There is no guarantee of price, liquidity, or future utility — including any gaming or on-site features that may be explored later. Verify the contract address against the official Pump.fun listing before buying anything, and only ever risk what you can afford to lose. DYOR.