Game: I Love Finding Cats!
Genre: Adventure, Puzzle
System: Nintendo Switch (also available for Steam, Windows & macOS)
Developers | Publishers: Tiny Little Lion | Ocean Media
Age Rating: US E | EU 3+
Price: US $9.99 | UK £8.99 | EU € 8,99
Early Access Release Date: January 6th, 2022
Review code used, with many thanks to Ocean Media.
I Love Finding Cats! is from a variety of puzzle games from the makers of I Love Finding Pups! There are several different kinds of puzzles for players to experience, and each one includes hidden kittens for players to pick out.
The Gameplay
I Love Finding Cats! contains a variety of different kinds of point-and-click puzzles. This includes hidden objects, find-the-difference, jigsaw puzzles, and more. Each of these different kinds of puzzles contains some kind of cats; sometimes they are hidden along with the other hidden objects, or they feature prominently in the jigsaw puzzle’s picture.
This game seems mostly designed around using the touch screen of the Nintendo Switch. There is the option to use the left joystick as well as the A button to move objects and click on the screen, but it is difficult to be precise with this setup. I assume that the point-and-click nature of the puzzles would make the PC version of this game a little bit easier to play, so if I were to purchase a title similar to this one, I would most likely avoid the Switch version this time around.
The puzzles, while not unique to this game, are fun and can be challenging. The hidden objects are well hidden, and the find-the-difference pictures can be quite difficult. That being said, the jigsaws are not as challenging, and I was much more like to skip those than complete them.
The Pros of I Love Finding Cats!
I love the cat theming of this game. It’s a fun puzzle collection with the added bonus of cute photos of cats and kittens. This title even includes a section on the main menu to see the developer’s own pet cats and kittens, which is a charming addition to an already charming game.
This game was super fun as a little distraction when I was waiting on something. Waiting for the thing in the microwave to finish heating for a couple of minutes? This game makes for a great way to pass the time. Waiting for a phone call, for a visitor, or just bored for a few minutes? I Love Finding Cats! is easy to pick up, play for a bit, and then put down. Players can come back after any amount of time and easily pick back up wherever they left off.
The Cons of I Love Finding Cats!
Some of the puzzles in I Love Finding Cats! are pretty boring. While making a jigsaw puzzle out of a cat picture is a cute idea, most of the ones I played were maybe 30 piece puzzles with unique shapes for each piece. It was so easy that I used the autocomplete for these jigsaw types more than once; it was more tedious than challenging, and I just wanted to get to the next kind of puzzle without having to click and drag the pieces myself.
I Love Finding Cats! doesn’t seem to be targeted towards very young kids, so it was a little odd to find some of the puzzles so simple. Perhaps the creators meant them as a mental break between more difficult puzzles, but they felt a little more like an insult to the player’s intelligence.
The Switch controls for this title are fairly awkward. While using the touch screen is easier than using the Joy-Cons, the touch screen controls aren’t the best. It seems like this game was designed for PC users first and was ported without much thought to how a player would interact with it without a mouse.
Conclusion
All that being said, I Love Finding Cats! is a fun little game. If the cost of it was a little lower, I would consider this a lot of fun and a great gift for anyone who loves cats in your family or friend group. It’s fun, it’s filled with cats, but the gameplay is a little awkward for me to love it.
Final Verdict: I Like it.
