Right here’s the pitch. “What if Blade Runner, however kitties?”
I do know what you’re pondering. “About freaking time!”
Cat’s Request is a point-and-click journey set in a near-future world. Town streets are solid in darkness and lit by neon, the place a lone wanderer (Ash) is in a rush to save lots of his devoted assistant (Root).
Root is a pc program, and desperately wants a physique. The issue is that Ash is useless broke, and everybody who might assist him is, quite unhelpfully, caught behind a collection of locks and puzzles that require a really particular set of objects to be utilized.
Sure, it’s a type of > USE GOLDFISH ON JANITOR’S HAT video games, the place you’re meant to run round to diversified areas, choosing up objects and interacting with weirdos to search out out what they want in order that they’ll open the door to different areas. It’s a nonlinear sport the place the exploration and trial-and-error software of objects is the purpose.
The world of Cat’s Request is intriguing, and I’m not joking after I say that it’s the Neo-noir of William Gibson blended with I Can Haz Cheeseburger. Every thing is tinged with an Asian taste, and the glowing lights challenge a world that superior to the purpose of holograms to promote eating places, then gave up.
The issue is that all the things that strikes is animated like a cellular sport, with just one or two expressions. Stroll or run, and it’s only a matter of two character frames transferring at totally different speeds. Name for a flying taxi, and it’s a nonetheless picture of the automobile touchdown, then your character fades out. That is hardly a knock towards Cat’s Request particularly, because it looks like most video games have adopted this model, I’m simply not a fan of it.
You’ll spend quite a lot of time retracing your steps in Cat’s Request (as you do with quite a lot of level and click on video games), attempting to determine which objects work with what characters. One other twist is that you simply’re in a position to swap management to Root, who can work together with computer systems (typically) to permit you to hack into methods to search for anomalies.
The design of Cat’s Request, each its look and ranges, is enjoyable sufficient to maintain you off-balance. The noir temper is sometimes spoiled by ridiculous quests to earn money by cleansing up a bar, recording music, and in search of recipes (aren’t I imagined to be a gritty detective?), in addition to off-the-wall components like touring via house to reap satellites.
Ultimately although, it’s form of exhausting to care about what’s taking place. Discovering bizarre methods to make use of objects is all the time time in point-and-click adventures, however the aims all felt extra like a grocery record than crucial mission in these characters’ lives.
And preserve a walkthrough open; it’ll be helpful for declaring objects within the background with which you didn’t know you possibly can work together.