An unusual review today for me, this time it is a game that is on the Android platform instead of my preferred gaming PC platform. Well, there is a reason for that... I'm looking for decent travel games for my kids to play over the summer holidays!
So, Cat Lady is a digital game adaption by Nomad Games of the very similarly named boardgame (card) Cat Lady. As far as I can tell it is a pretty faithful adaptation... Most board games adaptations usually are easy enough to port over faithfully... It is often more of a question about how well the game mechanics and player dynamics translate into a screen format.
Cat Lady is one of a plethora of collecting games, where you are collecting (and hampering other people's collection efforts) points in the form of crazy looking moggies (in this case) asking with a number of multipliers and bonuses to give you that final streak to the end advantage. So, a lot like Sushi Go for those who are familiar with that... Just lees edible.
The Setup
Ummm.... There really isn't a plot of back story to this! It's a connecting card game. However, the digital adaptation does give you the option of selecting an avatar with a bit of story blurb.
The Game
The basic game is relatively simple. There is a card play area of a 3x3 grid from which each player takes turns connecting a row or column of three cards to add to their hand. That particular row of column is then locked for the next player, and the cards are replenished from the unplayed deck.
This is repeated until there are no more cards to replenish the deck, at which point the hands are tallied up for points and the winner is crowned Champion Cat Lady!
The mechanics are simple and the art style and topic is cute and will appeal to kids, but underneath it there is a pretty cutthroat dynamic between players.
The basis for the point scoring is unsurprisingly... Cats. You need to connect the cats, but you also need to 'activate' them with food combos to unlock the points. Or you can try to hog the cats and food so no one else can get their points!
.. And where would we be without some differentiation in cats! Some cats are definitely more "powerful" than others, and unlock more points... if you can actually feed them! More importantly, some cats are much less fussy about the food that they are fed, so you can easily feed them whatever is leftover after the much fussier cats have had their fill!
In addition to basic cat and food mechanic for shooting points, there are three much more lucrative toy sets and dress up costumes (yes... You are a crazy person who dresses up their pets...). However, these sets come with risks (negative points) if the stress are incomplete
.. Or they require a certain combination of unlocked cats to activate! So, you see that this is starting to get a bit more involved!
At the end of the complete round (when the replenishment deck is finished), all the points are tallied up automatically by the game. This is definitely the most tedious part of any game like this... so, it is nice to have the game do it for you. On the other hand, I know that some people really LOVE this part of the game... their competitive aspects get them to eke out every potential advantage in this phase, whether it is truthful or not!
Me... I just hate having to explain the points rules EVERY SINGLE TIME!
Visuals, Sound and Performance
The visual style is very much similar to the physical board game, keeping that little crazy cartoon charm of the physical cards. Performance-wise, this runs easily enough on the Oneplus Nord, so I suspect that it will run on most Android hardware. All the graphical assets are static, so it it is much less demanding than most games.
Interestingly enough, the game was also released on Steam for PC platforms. Definitely any PC built in the current century should have the hardware chops to play this game... if you can run a web browser, I suspect that this game will run!
My Thoughts
The digital adaption of Cat Lady is quite fun to play... however, like most card game adaptions, I find that there is something a bit lacking in the screen format. There is a pass and play, or online ability... but there is something that can't really replace the concept of 2-4 people just sitting around with physical cards..
So, in the end... top marks for execution and faithfulness... top marks for everything. Except the one thing that is beyond hte ability of a developer to emulate... that magical feeling of playing with physical cards whilst looking at each over your hand. Watching that person eye-to-eye as you casually cat-stab them in the back!
Review Specs
Oneplus Nord (EU variant)
Splinterlands (aka the best blockchain game out there!)
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