Galactikitties Review

Scientists at the Institute for Totally Made-Up Facts and Figures estimate that 75% of all traffic on the internet consists of people sharing cat and cat-related videos, pictures, and memes. Estimates state that by 2018, the Great Cat Singularity will likely occur, at which point all humorous feline-related media content will become self-generating. Better finish those Netflix TV marathons while time remains. Or, alternatively, help speed the Singularity's arrival by playing... another cat-based iOS game. Galactikitties will do.

The premise of Galactikitties is a bit ridiculous (but isn't that what we love about cats in the first place?). Players drag a floating ball of yarn through space, attempting to round up hordes of cats tumbling through the cold, empty void. When the Catnip Timer at the bottom of the screen fills, a portal opens. Players then need to drag their spinning lump of adhered cats to the portal in order to safely rescue them. Along the way players can pick up pots of catnip that double the spawn rate of cats or fish that summon large numbers of extra cats. Meanwhile, dangerous asteroids and satellites will knock off chunks of cats and black holes will suck them away. There are also magnets, which function kind of like fish but instead attract more satellites.

The biggest problem with Galactikitties is that the core gameplay isn't anything terribly special. Survival and Time Attack modes seem like obvious score chaser draws, but in practice it's quite hard to make substantial progress in most any mode. This is mainly because of how difficult it is to maintain the size of the constantly spinning, rather floaty cat ball. By contrast, most obstacles come rushing through on speedy, relatively straight courses. If one can manage to avoid a direct collision, quite often the spin will still clip the troublesome object with the outer edge of cats, causing them to shear off. Obviously this is the central conflict of the gameplay, but at times it seems almost impossible to gather and maintain enough cats to reach the thresholds needed to move to the next level before the timer expires.

There's also an unfortunate lack of real replay incentive in Galactikitties. The audiovisual package is pretty barebones, so clearly nobody's coming for a sensory pop. Players gain new costumes to dress the cats in by unlocking achievements, but unfortunately that's about it.

In the end, Galactikitties is not a bad experience - it's just not an especially compelling one. And this is coming from a confirmed cat lover. Still, I suppose there are worse ways to spend a buck [Editor's Note: Yes. Yes there are.]. Oh well. Time for me to go back to contributing to the downfall of humanity by watching a few more cat videos.