Full Circle Magazine FR

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Price: Free on Steam, but DLC costs

Blurb: “Hey, do you have 5 minutes to spare? Let's play hide and seek with 100 cats in Osaka!  Can you find them all? “

Hidden Winter Cats - Find and paint 100 hidden cats in this big snowy location! Test your attention and relax in this cozy and free game”

So I was looking for new games to review... (sorry, I had to) When I decided to use the Steam filters and look for a “relaxing” game that supported Linux and was dirt cheap. That is when I stumbled across these two games. Now I’m not going to lie to you, casual games, especially cute ones, are a slippery slope. It has been the undoing of many a tablet user. Today I’ll be looking at a two of the lures in the sea that is casual gaming. 

I tried Winter Cats first and honestly I was stumped. There was no way there were 100 cats there. It took me probably five minutes of staring and scratching my head, before I realised that I could move the viewport. The image was much larger than my screen. I only stumbled across this when I switched it over to night mode. (I mean it was midnight, OK 00:22). You can also choose one of eight colours for the cats, just btw. Then things moved along and I hit my proverbial wall of 99 cats. This also happens to be what is in my pockets playing Kenshi. I realised I had a fun time, (almost ten minutes) with this simple game and when I found the last cat, I did it again to prove to myself I could do this in under five minutes. This is very clever marketing bait. The DLC is like 99c and one can be forgiven for spending the money. As the announcer said in “The running man”, “I’d buy that for a dollar!”. This is an arcade machine for the newer generations. Feed it another 99c for more hand drawn maps. Unlike arcade games, you get to keep it and play it whenever you want, and it is re-playable. A definite win in my book. Hidden Winter Cats does not have a zoom function, but the game offers a hint button if you really need to find that last cat. The soundtrack is also very very, * yawn * very relaxing. Oh and do try the hint button, it purrs!

Next, I gave Cats and Seek (Osaka) a go, but before I continue, I have to put it out there, I’m *not a cat person and I never was or will be. This could have been beavers or llamas and I still would have given it a go. Unlike Hidden Winter Cats, this does have a zoom option at the bottom of the screen and you can reset the view with the spyglass at the bottom left. Cats and Seek has more upbeat music and you are not likely to fall asleep, but is mellow none-the-less. This does not mean it isn’t relaxing at all. Just like the first game, it is a relaxing hidden object game with speed running undertones. (or should it be overtones?)

This time, though, it isn’t just black and white or white and black, you can choose your colours or click the wand icon, for random colours. Unlike the previous game, you can also choose your own custom colour for the cats. 

Eventually I went ‘dark mode’ again, just to save my eyes. (I made it not as bright, as I did here for the screen-shot, which makes for a pleasant experience and it stands out in the magazine.) If you hit your ninety-nine cat wall, you just have to soldier forth, as there is no hint button. What this one offers, is animated backgrounds, for instance the wind will blow the clouds from right to left and left to right across the screen. 

On Cats and Seek, the hitboxes were not as generous as Winter Cats, as I had to click, sometimes up to three times to tag a kitty, making speed running a bit more difficult. 

What I would have liked to see in both games was a few red herrings, things that look like cats but are not. A little more variety in the cat poses and “looks” or type of cat would have been nice. I’m not expecting where’s Waldo levels, or anything. Other than that, you have pretty solid games with minimal feel that play really well, whether you are a casual gamer or speed runner, that are very alike. The pricing is good and the money making model is not ‘gatcha’, like most free-to-play games are these days.

If you feel we were unfair: misc@fullcirlemagazine.org

P.S. There are steam “achievements” for both of these games and it is strange to see so many people that do not have all of these as in the free games, the cats are not difficult to find at all.