Popeye

Popeye is a heavy-hitting cat enemy found in the Junkyard, Desert, and Lab chapters. With 17 HP and 8 damage, it is one of the harder-hitting standard enemies in its chapter pool. Its signature ability is a dash attack with an enormous knockback of 10 tiles — any cat struck by Popeye can be launched most of the way across the room, often into walls or hazard tiles.

The 10-tile knockback is the defining danger: even a well-positioned cat can be sent flying into spikes, fire tiles, or enemy clusters in a single hit. Popeye's slow movement of 3 means it can be outpaced, but once it closes range the impact is severe. Its design references the classic sailor cartoon character. The wiki recommends treating Popeye similarly to Tom Toms: stay out of melee range and kill it early before it can chain knockback across multiple targets.

Maintain distance and use ranged attacks to kill Popeye before it reaches your cats. In rooms with hazardous terrain, be acutely aware of where knockback would send a struck cat — position against safe walls rather than in front of spikes or drops. If multiple Popeyes appear, focus one at a time rather than splitting damage, since even a single hit from a surviving Popeye can critically injure a cat through the extreme knockback.