The predators have become the prey. Molly crouches down and edges
toward her target. Finger primed and ready. The
poor, unsuspecting house cat is enjoying Adventure Time.
Then suddenly, the strike! The cat will never trust this
sweet, innocent little girl again.
Welcome to this new section on the blog, where I'll be looking at
games that I wouldn't normally pick up and play. Usually a game in
genre I don't play, or that I struggle to find the time for. So when I
discovered CatPoke, I decided to change my attitude, and it was well worth the
15 minutes it takes to play.
The story is simple. It's a rainy day and poor Molly has been told
by her mum that she can't play outside. But then, Molly spots one of their
cats, and wry smile appears across her face. Thus begins your puzzle based
quest to poke all the cats in the house.
The layout of the game is straightforward. You can explore the various floors of the house, discovering objects you'll need to coax the cats out of their hiding places. Controls are a bit awkward. 'Escape' will close the game entirely, so don't forget 'w' is the menu key. The arrow keys are movement, with 'a' as jump, 's' is poke and 'd' for item.
You’ll need patience with some parts of the game. Certain objects
have to be placed in very specific locations. This makes a couple of puzzles
tedious, as you know from the clue that you've solved it. Thankfully, when you
get an object, you can use it as many times as you want. So you can spam the
drop button if you get fed up.
The art and sound design perfectly suit the game. The game looks very good for a free indie title. Animations are well done, adding character to Molly through her actions. There's only one piece of music for the soundtrack, but it's an interesting jingle, and long enough so that it doesn't loop too many times. Also included in the background, are some nice pixel art references to other well-known games and TV. Kudos if you recognise them all.
If you’re interested in playing CatPoke, you can find it here. It's only a few megabytes to download, so you can get it
running in seconds. The ending is fantastic and the perfect end to a fun little
game.
