Game: Catty & Batty: the Spirit Guide
Genre: Puzzle, Party
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam, PS4 & Xbox)
Developer|Publisher: Muddasheep | Sometimes You
Age Rating: EU 3+ | US Everyone
Price: US $4.49 | UK £4.49 | EU € 4,49
Release Date: October 13th, 2021
Review code provided with many thanks to Sometimes You
You find yourself in a forest, joining two friends, a cat and a bat, named Catty and Batty. Their afternoon takes a different turn than expected as they are disturbed by some wisp-like spirits wandering around. These spirits want to get home to a spirit cavern thirty levels away, and it’s your job to guide them. Play as Catty or Batty and build a path to guide the spirits home. How to do this? Well, by using carton boxes!
Puzzling Right Off the Bat
By placing cardboard boxes on a top-down grid you can guide the spirits in a particular direction, aiming for the cavern entrance. Sounds pretty simple, and that’s exactly how Catty & Batty: the Spirit Guide starts out. But pretty soon every level poses a new obstacle. Eyeflowers are a nuisance, as the spirits can’t get past them. A heart vine can block the way, forcing you to switch from Batty to Catty to places boxes on either side of the screen. A Boxfox appears that really likes to sleep in your boxes, interfering with your well-laid plans. Dots that turn into portals when the spirits touch them.
New challenges are added constantly, some are re-used but overall there’s a pretty inventive puzzle mind at work here. The gameplay reminds me of a graphically far simpler approach to March of the Minis, but in Catty & Batty: the Spirit Guide you have no other means but the boxes to define your path. The tutorial is minimal, but it’s fun to discover what new obstacles do. And as there is no pressure, it’s fine to make mistakes too.
Aside from the selection of obstacles you can choose one of six colour modes, white, sepia, grey, dark, inverted and Gameboy. Drop boxes down, create a path and then press the X button to set the spirits loose. If your master plan is correct, they will drift to the escape and onto the next level.
Black and White Co-op Puzzler
Everything in Catty & Batty: the Spirit Guide is hand-drawn in black and white, sprites and animations. Personally, I would have left out the kaleidoscope effect between levels, as they even made me a bit queasy!
The simpler colours doesn’t mean this is a simple puzzler. Pretty soon I found myself really challenged to picture the route the Spirits would take in my mind’s eye. Plus, it’s all good and fun when you have enough boxes to play with, but if they are scarce, the difficulty level goes up. The piano music in the background is relaxing, fortunately. And the musical notes the spirits make are a very nice touch!
Catty & Batty: the Spirit Guide is perfectly enjoyable if you play on your now, but it also offers co-op play. I haven’t had a chance to try this out, but I imagine it works just as fine as the way you can pass on the lead from Catty to Batty when you play alone. There are some levels where the thorny vines split the screen, making it perfect for two. But if the screen isn’t split, you both can work out the solution by stacking the boxes together. However, there’s not really any need then for co-op.
Conclusion
Catty & Batty: the Spirit Guide challenges you to find the solution to guide the Spirits to their home. There’s no one solution to make it work, instead, you are challenged to think up your own. It’s nice that each level is different, obstacles don’t overstay their welcome. Personally, I could have done with less simple graphics, but I have to give kudos to the developer for the fact that it’s all hand-drawn. Overall, a good little puzzler.
Final Verdict: I Like It 