Game Reviews

Wake the Cat

Star onStar onStar onStar onStar off
|
| Wake the Cat
Get
Wake the Cat
|
| Wake the Cat

Those who own cats know that the furry feline tyrants are not to be trifled with. When they want food, you give them food. When they want sleep, you let them sleep.

Unless, of course, you're playing Wake the Cat, in which case the best thing you can do for a sleeping kitty is to roll a ball of yarn at its face.

While humanitarians might bristle at this premise, the cat never seems upset by the arrival of the yarn. Instead, it hops right up to play with it kicking off a mobile puzzle game that may well be the successor to the venerable Cut the Rope.

Stray cat strut

Each level in Wake the Cat has the same objective: you have to launch the ball of yarn so that it touches - and thus wakes - the sleeping cat.

This objective begins simply enough, but it soon becomes complicated as you bank the yarn off moving trains and through magical teleporting slippers in order to complete a given level.

As with Cut the Rope's Om Nom, you'll get no help from the sleeping cat with this task, and so you have to be spot-on with your shots if you want to clear a level.

This is somewhat easier to endure thanks to the fact that the nameless cat is asleep, meaning you don't have to watch in frustration as it gestures towards its face in a not-so-silent plea for you to be more accurate with your yarn rolling.

Cat scratch fever

In addition to providing you with cute graphics, Wake the Cat also tests your knowledge of geometry and physics with relentless glee - many levels require you to bounce the yarn ball off of an object or wall to line up your shots properly around obstacles.

This requires that you map angles and take risks. Think mini-golf with a sleeping cat instead of a hole at the end of the green and you won't be far wrong.

Once basic angles are mastered, Wake the Cat quickly introduces new variables into levels like fans, sticky tape, orbital tops (the attraction of which recalls Angry Birds Space), and angled pipes that you can rotate to launch the yarn ball ever-closer to its goal.

Cool cat

Ultimately, Wake the Cat is everything it aims to be: a fun and challenging puzzle game that's well-suited to small bursts of gameplay.

While it may appeal to cat people more than dog people, anyone looking for an enjoyable physics puzzler would do well to check out Wake the Cat.

Beneath its adorable and snuggly exterior may well lie the next big thing in the world of mobile puzzle gaming.

yt
Subscribe to Pocket Gamer on

Wake the Cat

A cute cat and disarming presentation can't hide the fact that this is a puzzler with staying power
Score
Matthew Diener
Matthew Diener
Representing the former colonies, Matt keeps the Pocket Gamer news feed updated when sleepy Europeans are sleeping. As a frustrated journalist, diehard gamer and recovering MMO addict, this is pretty much his dream job.