So, first of all, this might not be a final review of Cats Are Liquid. I played this game on mobile, despite not being a huge fan of puzzle platformers.
***Hot Take***
Cats Are Liquid – A Better Place didn’t not change my mind on this.
***Hot Take***
Here’s the thing. When it comes to platformers, I like them to be a bit drifty, a bit forgiving, and not overly taxing. I come from an era of Mario games where if you’re not pixel perfect, it’s fine.
Cats Are Liquid – A Better Place was a bit like that in places. Some jumps I thought I’d messed up landed fine. But that’s kind of the point. Sometimes the controls became very twitchy, and I’d slam into a spike. Or fall off a platform. Or fall off a spinny thing. At least “You just respawn”.
And then came the next bit. Cozy games are supposed to be relaxing. I rage quit this one and uninstalled it. First, you have the above controls. But, you’re going through a tutorial level, with a story, and then you get faced with a mechanic. Are you told how to do it? Nope. But you can’t progress past this part unless you use this mechanic. I almost got it. But never quite did, and in the end, I was so annoyed with the twitchy controls and poorly explained mechanics that I rage quit and uninstalled it.
But…here’s the thing. Apart from those two dealbreakers, I didn’t hate the game. I quite liked the story…
***Hot Take***
A lot of Steam reviews mention the storyline, with some calling it triggering, and some saying not to let kids play it. I’m not going to ruin it, but, I didn’t find the storyline particularly dark or depressing or triggering. Someone has tagged it “Psychological horror”. Really? I’d suggest not watching Finding Nemo then…
***Hot Take***
I needed to get that out. I liked the story, it was really well told with a sentence or two per screen. I loved the graphics – so simple, but so well done. The mechanics that did work, I liked. And the animation was silky smooth on a device that isn’t exactly best in class.
And this is why this might not be a final review. It’s on Steam for a few pounds, and I might try it. Perhaps playing it with a controller will be more satisfying, maybe it’ll be easier to control the cat. And maybe I’ll understand why it has a “Mostly Positive” score on Steam.