Catsperience

From the trailer for Black Vertigo’s real-time, first-person Catsperience, I expected a game from the perspective of a hungry cat in search of his owner. While a token amount of cat-ivity is present, the focus is on collecting keys, cracking combinations, and mastering the secrets of the solar system. Oh, and conjuring platforms into existence when under the effects of catnip.

Lord Mordant, a black cat, wakes to find no food has been left for him in his Victorian manor house adorned with antiquated wallpaper and wood paneling. He must search the surroundings to find a key to unlock the bedroom door, and to search the rest of the house for more keys to unlock more doors. Keys can be found in pots, safes, or locked contrivances that require Myst-type reasoning to crack open.

The logic puzzles are just there, with no plot justification for why a historical house would have them. They’re fine, but as I wanted a feline-centric experience, they left me unimpressed after my three hours of play. Part of that time was wasted on a colour matching puzzle that failed to recognize I’d solved it, which I only discovered after consulting a walkthrough. This required a restart as there’s only a single save and mine was after the bugged point. There was also a slooow slider puzzle I spent an hour on before again consulting the walkthrough to learn it was entirely optional.

I’d hoped Catsperience would play to its title and let me solve things as a cat. I wanted to climb things like a cat: to squeeze through narrow gaps or leap nimbly across furniture; to use my paws to open doors and manipulate objects. Unfortunately, there’s little of that here. Doors are opened in typical game style by collecting keys in the one-item-at-a-time inventory and pressing a button to use them. Leaping is awkward, with separate controls for small hops, long horizontal leaps, and popcorn-popping vertical jumps, none of which feel fluid.

Mordant provides a running commentary of his journey via text-only dialog. Sarcastic and cranky, his comments elicit the odd chuckle. He is unconcerned with what befalls anyone, save when that interferes with his life. As a result, I was left unsatisfied after finding his human but with no explanation of what had happened.

Visuals and sound effects get the job done but don’t distinguish themselves. Rooms look largely repetitive due to the colour scheme, a dark brownish-orange that gets tiresome to look at after a while. It is fun to leap onto shelves of pots and vases, knocking them to the ground with a meow and a crash, one of the few cat-like activities available. Occasionally, Mordant gets the jitters and must use catnip, which temporarily bathes the screen in rainbow light and causes the focus to waver in and out. It’s novel the first couple of instances, but becomes a distraction when trying to solve puzzles.

Catsperience purports to be a mystery game told from the perspective of a real cat. In actuality, it’s mostly about code and combination solving. Clumsy controls make maneuvering around the drab house a tedious and awkward chore. Some levity comes from the cat’s comments and it’s fun doing cat things like knocking over furnishings or pouncing on rats. More focus on the cat aspects would have given this game a unique feel as opposed to being another first-person puzzler but with a cat theme grafted on. Those who like abstract logic puzzles may find some interest here, but cat lovers would do best to look elsewhere.

The Good

• Knocking over jars and vases and pouncing on rats is fun
• the cat’s comments are occasionally funny.

The Bad

• Controls are unwieldy
• the setting is drab and repetitive
• focus on logic puzzles is a bait-and-switch from what the game claims to be.

Our Verdict

Decent

A qualified success; the positive aspects still outnumber the negative, but the weaknesses noticeably hinder the experience.

With clumsy controls and a focus on codes and combinations, Catsperience leaves little room for life as a feline.