Cat Me If You Can Review: Bringing back colour, one cat at a time

Cat Me If You Can is one of the most interesting and unusual games I've gotten the chance to play.

You're wandering through a black and white town with a simple job: bring back the colour in the world around you. Now that task doesn't really sound all that intriguing; it's probably boring to an extent, until you find out that you're going to do it by taking pictures of different cats. It's a charming premise, and you may think, "well, that doesn't sound complicated", but the developers manage to make hunting down some of these cats feel like an actual detective challenge.

The hand-drawn and noir-inspired art style sets the tone right away, and the whimsical and slightly foolish music only adds more to that charm, inviting you into this cosy and cute game, which was obviously made by someone who loves cats.

You should be prepared to embark on a quest that will most certainly bring a smile to your face whenever you pull out your camera and snap a picture of a kitty that is minding her own business and is probably annoyed that you're bothering her. 

The black and white world

Cat Me If You Can doesn't really have a traditional type of story, and I feel like it would be tough to make a story fit into a game like this without it feeling forced. The premise carries the whole experience: you’re making your way through a world that is lifeless and has no colour whatsoever, and it’s up to you, your camera and cats to colour it back.

The game spans across a handful of stages, and all of them have three levels, distinct themes and settings, such as Land of the Rising Meow, the Meowdieval Era, and Purramid Kingdom. Every stage brings its own visual identity along with the theme, and gives the game a real sense of variety even without any dialogue or plot that drives it.

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Every time you take a picture of a cat, you bring some colour into the world.

The cats that you meet end up doing the storytelling as well, in their own way. You’ll find them everywhere, on the street, in restaurants, on cars, but also tucked into corners you usually wouldn’t check, and they’re all unique with different colours, sizes, breeds, and sometimes even caught mid-activity. They are connected to different activities you are looking for, such as cats that are in a theatre, cats that are hanging out in a classroom, which all connect back to the epic cats you’ll be looking for in each level. 

I always looked at these cats as the overlords, almost; that's how they were in my mind, the rulers of the level I was trying to beat. They felt like the peak, probably because they were much bigger than the other cats. 

You don’t need a narrator or super detailed cutscenes to explain why you’re doing what you’re doing; the game leaves that to you to figure out, and maybe you’ll see it differently when you experience the game.

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Not all cats are easy to find, some are really tucked away in the environment.

There is something lovely about making the idea of cats bringing some colour into our lives so literal. It isn’t just a cute visual gimmick; it’s basically the whole idea of the game, which is dressed up as a mechanic. Anyone who has had a pet knows that feeling, coming home after a rough day and having a cat (or dog, or hamster, or whatever little creature happens to love you back) somehow make it feel a bit less heavy and brighter just by being there with you.

Cat Me If You Can takes that small bit of magic that pet owners experience every day and makes it the spine of their game. You’re moving one step at a time, or one cat at a time in this instance, until that same, lifeless world gets to experience that moment of magic.

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After snapping a pic, you can look at it and also check out the kitty's name.

You shouldn’t go into this game looking for a story; you should go into it looking for a feeling that is being built slowly, and a world where you’re bringing life back just by going out and taking some pictures of cute cats doing their thing.

Snap, purr, repeat

This game has a gameplay loop that is refreshingly simple to explain: you find the cats, use your polaroid to snap a photo, and watch them regain colour the moment that image is taken. You have your basic movements as you play, so you can jump, run, crouch- nothing out of the ordinary, which you’ll need for searching and observing rather than getting involved in some crazy platforming challenge.

In every level, there is a certain number of cats you need to find, and you can track those on a board within the level itself and in the corner of your screen. Once you’ve snapped a picture of each of them in the stage, you’re free to move on (because you wouldn’t leave any objectives not completed, right?).

 While it does sound very easy, and in the introductory level it really is, you’ll genuinely need to grab your glasses and look closely, as not every cat is sitting out in the open; some are tucked into bushes, perched up somewhere high, or hidden in places you wouldn’t think to look. For some kitties, I thought, “Yeah, I knew you’d be there” but for others, I would’ve never looked there in the first place.

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The journal will let you know now many items you're missing to get one of the special cats.

If you do get stuck, fret not. The game gives you a radar which can help you and point you in the right direction. Depending on how hard or easy you want to make the game, you can change the cooldown of the radar in the settings, which decides how many times you’ll be able to use it.

Colours have another job in this game, while things will mostly stay black and white as you play (except the cats), anything you can interact with will get coloured, which is a neat and intuitive way of guiding your attention without needing too many prompts or markers on your screen. You’ll need to do some puzzle-solving here and there in order to progress, such as finding different objects which are connected to a certain epic cat.

In each level there are special, epic cats alongside the regular ones, and for those to appear, you’ll need to search for objects which are connected to it. For some of them, you’ll need to find those objects and take a picture of them, while for others you’ll need to collect them and bring them to a certain place in the level.

All of these are listed in your journal, where you can track how many you have left. These epic cats tend to stand out from the rest of the kitties, for example, by being chefs, singers, or slightly tipsy cats in suits and a briefcase. Your journal is genuinely useful, letting you track quests, save photos of cats you like to check out later, and browse cat relics you’ve collected along the way.

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Cat Me If You Can allows you take pictures of all types of cats, small and big ones.

The cats come in plenty of variety, different colours, sizes, and shapes, and each time you snap a picture of them, you get a satisfying purring sound. Small touch, but very much appreciated. The variety in cats also doesn’t allow the search to become repetitive across the multiple levels.

However, hunting down the objects you need for the epic cats tends to be a bit harder than just looking for the regular cats. The radar can’t guide you in search of these items, only towards the spot where you have to bring them (in case you’re collecting them), meaning you’re often left to roam around and look for them on your own. Which isn’t really the issue; this is a game where you need to search for things, but I would appreciate the option to get some help after I’ve spent 10 minutes looking for a knife or a tea bag that looks similarly like any other bag in the game.

Sharp contrast, soft sounds

The hand-drawn and black-and-white art style of the game is one of its strongest hooks, and it does a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to the game’s overall charm. The presentation gives every stage a distinct quality, almost as if it’s coming from a storybook, and the different names and periods of the levels just add more charm on top.

The world around you seems almost like a photograph waiting to be developed, drained of all colour, and then when you snap a photo and bring back some colour to it, the contrast that you achieve between the world and the object that now stands out is what makes it “pop” even more. This is a genuinely cute game to look at, and the art style that is chosen is chosen deliberately, acting as a central part of the design rather than an afterthought.

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The monitor will show you how many pictures you've snapped, but also how many you're missing.

Because when you think about it, if the world wasn't void of all colours but you could see some here and there, would the colourful cats that appear bring out the same reaction? Probably not.

The music matches the same tone of the game from the very start; it’s whimsical and just a bit foolish, in a way that goes well with the aesthetic of the game. This is a game that wants to make you smile as you play, and not stress out. The small audio touches also add to that - such as the purring - and feel almost like a reward.

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The environments are simple, as the focus is on the cats and the photography.

On the technical side, the only real hiccup that I experienced was the Polaroid camera - not the camera I usually complain about - sometimes wouldn’t snap the photo right away, but I’d have to click a few more times, which isn’t something that happened frequently enough to be a big deal.

A tail worth following

By the time I was done with taking cute little kitty pictures, I noticed that Cat Me If You Can had done what it set out to do, turned a simple and cosy idea into something actually hard to put down. The core loop of the game doesn’t get old or boring, and the puzzle elements give it enough challenge to allow it to stay engaging and interesting.

It’s more than clear that whoever made this loves cats, and that love comes through in every hidden kitty you find, in the purring sound effects you get as a reward, and all the small, colourful details that are scattered through this world. Moving between the different stages, looking at the funny names with cat puns, makes the game feel fresh and also like something that the developers really enjoyed making. Each level has its own flavours, and it never feels like more of the same.

It’s not really trying to seem like a complicated or tough game. It rewards slowing down, actually paying attention to your surroundings, and bringing some colour to the grey world around you, which nets you some purring. Win-win situation, if you ask me.

Sometimes all you really need to have a nice time is a polaroid camera, a good pair of peepers, and a world full of cats just waiting to be found.