Tag: Casual games »

When a super nova threatens a planet full of cats (multiple planets, actually), the self-appointed task of saving them falls on a pair of big-hearted extraterrestrials. The duo will have to hop from world to world, gathering as many kitties as they can before the time limit runs out. Then doing it again, of course. Because CATS, people. Because cats.

The gameplay functions as a sort of weird combination of gravity-based claw machine meets incremental in-game improvements found in titles like Katamari Damacy. The ship’s tractor beam can only pick up the smaller felines at first, but after enough of them are carried off it gains strength and can be used to lift much larger targets. Coins earned through play can be used to buy new ships or upgrade a specific one, while stars acquired through achievement-like progress will unlock new worlds. And there are always special hidden kitties to find and (hopefully) rescue.

The US release of Cats Away should be out sometime around the end of June/beginning of July and $0.99 is all that’s needed to secure this universal iOS cat carrier.

Cado is a little eyeball blob-thing that always seems to get itself into tough situations. Since it's also seemingly incapable of getting itself out of said tough spots, it falls on the player's shoulders to get it through each level. How? By rotating the stage itself and rolling the lazy little ball to the exit. It's not quite as easy as it sounds.

The first few levels of Cado are pretty simple, with very little in the way of hazards and hardly any need to restart. Soon, though, things get much more complex. Some levels start the little ball on the outside of a spiral, and players have to ever-so-delicately spin the world around it so it doesn't fall off into oblivion. Then the stages get even more hazardous, using broken-up platforms and throwing spikes into the mix.

Cado is a good deal of fun, although attempting to snag a level's star can get frustrating. Still, it gets plenty addicting and I blew through almost 30 of the game's 40 levels before I knew it. If that sounds like cause for concern, don't worry; the developer plans to release another 20 levels in a future update, free of charge. Something I'm rather interested in seeing when it comes out, because the levels thus far have been both devious and crazy. In a good way.

My solitary gripe with Cado is that it almost feels like it should use accelerometer controls rather than the on-screen virtual buttons. Which feels weird to say because I typically avoid tilt-based control methods but a game like this practically begs for it. That's not to say that it needs them, but sometimes things spin just a tad too slow and I feel like more direct control through tilting would make a difference.

Cado is certainly one fun and hard to put down game. The 40 levels (soon to be 60, total) are somewhat of a mixed-bag as far as challenge goes, but that shouldn't stop anyone from enjoying this addicting casual physics puzzle-platformer. Or inventing their own string of adjectives to use when they tell their friends about it.