Review for Catie in MeowmeowLand
Need a break from reality? Have I got just the thing for you!
Imagine you’re lying in your bed slumbering, dreaming about magical lands far away, with strange and unfamiliar things, when you’re suddenly woken up by a little cat running past your window. You might think this isn’t that strange, but when I say that the cat has clothes on and a little pocket watch, I think I have your attention. You follow the cat into the garden, where you see him jump down a hole in the ground and… Wait a minute! This sounds suspiciously familiar, you might say! And you are right. Slovak game developers ARTillery have made a delectable cat-themed homage to Lewis Carroll’s masterpiece, Alice in Wonderland and Studio Ghibli’s anime creations with their quirky and charming game: Catie in MeowmeowLand.
As previously mentioned, the story starts with Catie, a little girl sleeping in her room and suddenly awakened by a cat outside her window. She follows the cat down a… err… cat-hole and ends up being pooped out by another cat in MeowmeowLand. Yes, you read that correctly. To find her way back home again, she learns from yet another big white cat that she needs to see a mole guy, and so begins the delicious acid trip that is Catie in MeowmeowLand.
Visually, this game is as impressive as it is weird. Its beautiful and whimsical graphics are full of funny little details, such as cats flying past you in the background in tiny spaceships, and the character designs are appealing. The scenes and locations are also stunning ranging from dream-like landscapes that would impress Salvador Dali, to illustrious rooms with peculiar themes and interiors.
The game style reminds me of Amanita Design's games like Machinarium and Samorost, to mention a few, where just as in Catie in MeowmeowLand, you progress in the game by clicking items and solving simple and fun puzzles along the way. As Catie travels through MeowmeowLand, she encounters strange creatures and wondrous locations that are as beautiful as they are unusual. Using only the left mouse button, you progress by clicking on things, and anything interactive turns your cursor into a cat-like paw.
The puzzles you need to solve range in both difficulty and complexity. Sometimes all you have to do is click on an item or a creature, and other times you need to put an item in the right place or make a specific sequence of events happen before you can move on.
I wouldn’t say that the puzzles are very challenging, but they are sometimes not very logical, which did, on occasion, require a lot of random clicking with my cursor/paw to try and figure out what to do. Should you get stuck entirely or don’t know what to do to move on, you are occasionally aided by a little bird that gives you a hint.
Since there isn’t any understandable dialogue in Catie in MeowmeowLand, the hints are given as a little drawing on a scroll that the hint-bird holds. Communication usually happens as visual speech bubbles with illustrations instead of words or simple, fetching phrases like “meow meow”, “tick tock”, “hupp”, “whoopa” and “numnum”, to name a few.
Each of the beautiful locations is accompanied by equally wonderful music. It seems as if every environment has its own piece of music; whether it is curious, whimsical, mysterious, or just darn cute, the music is well-constructed, and together with the “voice acting” (if you can call it that), it adds to the overall pleasantly unconventional atmosphere.
Although Catie in MeowmeowLand is as adorable as it is fun, it sometimes gets a bit repetitive, as what you do is mostly click on things, and the story isn’t exactly very deep. If you’re looking for a profound narrative with plot twists around every corner, this isn’t the game for you. I spent around 2.5 hours completing it, and although it's short, I did sometimes feel a bit like I was only doing the same thing over and over, so it does not provide much variety. Some people would probably find it a bit too childish as well, although I personally really liked the luscious, wacky quality in what is truly a cat lover's delight.
Does it have a profoundly deep story and wild plot twists? No. Is it kind of repetitive and at times childish and naïve? Sure. But Catie in MeowmeowLand is still a captivating and enchanting experience that had me laughing and forgetting the dreadful world that is out there, at least for a little while.
