Cat Slide Tiles Review | TheXboxHub

Alright, we’re calling shenanigans. What’s with all these cat-based puzzle video games? Sokocat – Combo, Sissa’s Path, Vivid Paw, Kattish… Do recreation builders get near releasing their puzzle video games and suppose, wait, we forgot to incorporate any appeal and persona! Stick a cat on it: that’ll do it! Are all life’s issues solved by simply sticking a cat on it? We fear that sure, sure they may be.

Cat Slide Tiles is a sliding puzzle. Click on-clack some tiles round a grid till an image kinds. That’s all it’s. You’ve in all probability discovered them in Christmas crackers or social gathering baggage, or performed a couple of bazillion of them in hidden object video games or escape rooms. 

The slight spiciness comes from the necessity to create a path moderately than an image. The lovable cat, aww, sits at an entrance sq., which can’t be moved, and it’s essential to create an unbroken path to the exit sq.. That exit sq. is initially a little bit complicated: you’re aiming to get to the black iron-wrought door, moderately than the wood door, and that may set off the tip of the extent. 

You may’t simply bash collectively a straight line to the exit door: you additionally must stroll your cat via the three keys within the degree. They’re on very particular sliding puzzle items, so that they turn into necessary. You’ll need to include the bends and straights that they sit on. 

Are we lacking something? Oh sure, there are additionally inflexible, unmovable items, as denoted by castle-like partitions. You’ll have to work round these items, together with them within the circulation of your path do you have to want. And also you’d be stunned how typically they’re crimson herrings, and also you don’t want to incorporate them in any respect. 

That actually is it. There are not any new puzzle items that get shuffled in as the degrees progress. We reached degree 10, then 20, 30 and 40, anticipating to see difficult new squares, awkward obstacles and even some enemies being added, however Cat Slide Tiles is cussed about conserving issues easy. All that adjustments is the form and variety of items that you just’re given, in addition to the variety of empty squares to stuff items into. 

Don’t get us incorrect, the fundamental puzzle right here is fairly robust. We have now waking nightmares about sliding puzzles in different video games, the place you’re given just one empty sq. to maneuver round. We simply haven’t discovered the very best apply or algorithm to finish them simply. However the puzzles in Cat Slide Tiles are beneficiant. You’re getting loads of area to shove undesirable items out of the best way. In some ways, a puzzle is extra about determining a path utilizing the restricted items you’ve got. The sliding is secondary, and slotting it collectively isn’t a lot of a problem. 

We’ll take exception to the controls and UI, although. To maneuver a sq., you must spotlight it, press A to drag it into focus, transfer the analogue stick within the course you need, after which press A to maneuver it. Already, we’d argue that the second ‘A’ press isn’t wanted. The sq. ought to simply transfer with the directional press. However you can also’t press any of those buttons concurrently. It will have been a lot smoother and simpler in case you may maintain and drag items, however like a dispassionate cat, the sport simply seems the opposite manner and ignores you. 

You must press B to again out of every highlighted tile too, so you’ll be able to transfer to the following one, so it’s about as clumsy as clumping round with clogs in your palms. The UI doesn’t assist both: there’s no actual indication of which tile you’re specializing in, so it will probably take some time to orient the place you truly are. 

Maybe extra heinously, and simpler to identify in any sort of playtest, is that altering the digital camera performs havoc with the controls. Jostle the digital camera the tiniest quantity, even when unintentionally nudging the fitting analogue stick, and all of a sudden the management scheme will get swapped. Left is up and proper is down. You’re now spending time flipping the digital camera about in a determined try to get the controls again to regular. It’s an oversight that might simply have been pounced on.

However for all of the clumsiness of the controls – and lets not overlook, that is the only of video games, in order that clumsiness actually shouldn’t be there – it’s doable to adapt and get some puzzles in. There’s a sort of serenity and safety in understanding that the puzzles are extra about shuffling blocks round a big room than it’s a tense sliding puzzle, so you’ll be able to take your time. There are a number of options to most puzzles, so you’ll be able to merely discover the trail that fits you.

After ten puzzles, we understood every little thing Cat Slide Tiles was doing. We’d even mastered the controls. After twenty puzzles, we had been bored. After thirty puzzles, we noticed layouts that we swore we had seen earlier than. And after forty puzzles, we began questioning what the hell was happening with the issue curve. Very all of a sudden, the puzzles had been simpler, moderately than tougher, as if they’d been programmed back-to-front. 

We began to be taught that Cat Slide Tiles in all probability wasn’t greatest performed in lengthy stretches. We started taking part in from achievement to achievement, turning it on for fifteen minutes, taking part in some layouts till the Xbox went ‘blip’ and gave us the following Gamerscore milestone. After which we turned it off, as a result of we knew that fatigue was a-coming. 

Play it this fashion, and the monumental repetition gained’t crush you. Ten or so puzzles at a time is nearly proper. However we’d have most well-liked it if the sport itself reset our fatigue, providing one thing new within the layouts or mechanics that saved us taking part in. 

However look! There’s a cat! You may’t distract us, Minicactus Video games. When you do certainly have an lovable cat in your recreation, trundling from entrance to exit with each path we make, you’ll be able to’t disguise the dearth of, properly, something in any respect in Cat Slide Tiles. It’s a one-trick pussycat, providing comparatively friction-free sliding puzzles, however with none new mechanics or obstacles to get you considering in new  instructions.

Like a cat with a ball of wool, you’ll toy with Cat Slide Tiles for a couple of minutes after which toss it away for one thing higher. The subsequent day, you would possibly undergo the method once more. You would possibly even discover that you just get to the tip of the sport this fashion. Nevertheless it’s actually not one thing you’d tinker with for greater than fifteen minutes at a pop.

You should purchase Cat Slide Tiles from the Xbox Retailer