Do not attempt to adjust your monitor. We control the horizontal, the vertical... the cat saturation. That's right. This week's Vault is about games that feature those little furry balls of mercurial moods, small animal murder, and vomit. Lots of vomit. Usually sometime in the middle of the night so you don't hear it, and placed just so that when you do step on it on your way into the bathroom in the morning, it's already cold. Hurray!
- Robot Wants Kitty - Robot has wanted a lot of things, but in the beginning Hamumu's mechanical metroidvania platforming machine just wanted a little ball of kitty cuddles for his own. Presumably to love and pet and call him George. The goal is to get to the cat, which sounds simple since you can see him right away, but actually involves tracking down special power-ups and abilities to navigate your way past all the hazards and enemies to him. A heavy amount of adorableness earns this one extra points, but Robot Wants Kitty really is the pitch-perfect casual bit of metroidvania to brighten your day.
- Sushi Cat - If I could believe my cat Milo was fat because of love and not... well, fat, maybe he wouldn't be on a diet right now. Joey Betz's arcade game about a little blue cat who must eat all the sushi he can to fatten up to reach the girl of his dreams has a lot going for it. In addition to being gorgeous and silly, it's also a very unique little spin on a physics title as you drop your cat down a Pachinko board, watching him bounce around, eat sushi, and get fatter. Sushi Cat has a few sequels, and after just a little bit of om-nom-noming you'll wish there was even more.
- Space Kitteh - Our Casual Gameplay Design Competitions always seem to bring out a lot of wild concepts and talent, and Zach Archer and Miles Johnson were no exception when they made this little... action... platform... physics... thingy. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to travel to other planets, navigating their gravitational fields, and rescue the kitties on them. A noble pursuit, as I'm sure you agree. The biggest challenge in Space Kitteh comes from mastering the controls, which is something it shares with many other games, but the reward for your patience is a clever and unique game with a great visual style well worth experiencing. In... spaaaaaaaaace! Oh be quiet, you knew it was coming.
- Flash Cat - Naturally, when you want a swanky racing game about a cat zipping along away from aliens and such on a giant robot spider-mabobber for a vehicle, you call Nitrome. Or Grant Imahara, because he sounds like he'd be all over that. While it lacks the tight maneuverability of, say, other racing games I've never played because my sole experience with car games comes from Grand Theft Auto and Mario Kart, Flash Cat delivers that over-the-top colourful experience you've come to expect from Nitrome packed with charm and character. You'll need to exercise some patience with this one, as it takes a while to really get the hang of, but fans of surrealistic cat racing need look no further for their fix.
- Copy Cat: A Painter's Puzzle - Mofongo Studios' painting puzzler might not have whiskers, but they know that the worst kind of cat is a copy-cat! And by that I mean you, since you're the low-down, no-good copier in this instance. Your job is to recreate images you're shown with the paints at your disposal... with only a handful of colours you'll need to shape, mix, and manipulate to do so. Copy Cat is one of those weird, stylish little games whose unique but still simple premise makes it the sort of thing you can find yourself wasting an hour on, after only meaning to "check it out for a second". With a level editor to create masterpieces to confound other would-be forgers, it's a purrr-fectly neat little way to train your brain in a puzzle of a different sort.
While we welcome any comments about this weekly feature here, we do ask that if you need any help with the individual games, please post your questions on that game's review page. Well, what are you waiting for? Get out there and rediscover some awesome!
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