A Building Full of Cats Review

Game: A Building Full of Cats
Genre: Hidden Object
System: Steam (Windows)
Developers | Publishers: Devcats
Controller Support: None
Price: US $1.99 | UK £1.65 | EU € 1,55
Release Date: July 7th, 2022

Review code used, with many thanks to Devcats.

This hidden object game called A Building Full of Cats is exactly what it sounds like. Climb up floors and find hidden kittens everywhere in little hand-drawn scenes.

The Gameplay of A Building Full of Cats

A Building Full of Cats is a five-floored building, each with two rooms filled with hidden (and some not-so-hidden) kitty cats. These little friends peak out from behind shelves, from inside of drawers, under rugs, and even from their own litter boxes. Players just point and click on each of the hidden felines until they find all of them.

In the upper left-hand corner, the game informs you of how many hidden cats are left (the first, larger number) and how many two-click cats are left (the smaller number to the left). Hidden cats are out in the room somewhere, but two-click cats are hidden inside of drawers, behind curtains, or outside windows, and players have to click something before they appear.

When found, these cats are a different color than the one-click cats.

There is also one super hidden kitten on each level. When clicked on, he or she moves from their location to a new one, and players have to chase and click them three times before earning a little paw print under the numbers.

The Developers Listen

When I first began playing A Building Full of Cats, there were no hints. But after several fans of the game complained about the lack of clues in levels, the developers added an update that allowed players one hint per floor.

While this was a welcome change, it was not implemented very well. Players only get one hint per floor, which usually isn’t quite enough. Also, if players are not in the room where the hint pops up, they won’t be able to see it. The hint system doesn’t include moving the camera.

Hopefully, since this was quickly thrown together, the developers are still working on making the hint system better in future updates.

A Building Full of Cats Compared to Others

A Building Full of Cats is similar in a lot of ways to other hidden object games that I have played, including Ever Seen a Cat? 2 which I reviewed earlier this month. But there are a couple of things that makes this game stand out.

Click Everywhere

The two-click cats are both fun and a little annoying. It would have been better if there was some kind of indication or theme to the items that could be clicked on to make a cat appear, but there didn’t seem to be a logical way to reason out what might open and what wouldn’t. Some drawers open, but not all. Some cats are hidden in a light fixture on one level but the light won’t do anything on another.

In other words, instead of adding something interesting to gameplay, it mostly just makes you click everywhere that might open up. Even if it was just things that had a little tail sticking out or some sort of indication to keep me from clicking all over the screen over and over.

I wish there was a better hint system too; hopefully, that is coming soon. This would also help with the double-click hidden cats that don’t seem to make much sense.

One thing I disliked about the game is that the numbers in the upper left-hand corner of the screen aren’t labelled. I had no idea what the paw print meant and which number was which when it got really low. While I was able to figure it out, a quick overlay screen tutorial would have been much more helpful instead of a wall of text at the beginning that I most certainly didn’t read.

Conclusion

Overall, this game is cute and fun. Hidden object cat games are a new favorite to me, and I really dig the vibe of A Building Full of Cats. That being said, there are some small improvements that could make this game really special.

Final Verdict: I Like it.