Guest contributors Solitaire and Cammy take us fishing with the jazziest cat around.
You know what the gaming world needs? Kool Kat Jazz, and the title music for Digital Tentacles new game is a great example of this, complete with in-tune wailing cat.
Digital Tentacle is a new Madrid based company who have created this entertaining nautical puzzler with 70 challenging levels
The opening intro shows off the gorgeous artwork in the game, with those pesky fish playing tricks on hapless fishermen, until you come along.
You play as the eponymous Captain Cat, who has woken from his long nap, and is off out on his fishing boat to catch some fish. Unfortunately for you, the fish are well hidden at the bottom of a maze-like cavern that you have to negotiate your fishing line through avoiding hazards along the way.
The controls are similar to Gold Miner, where you drop you anchor over the side and it starts to swing about. Tapping the screen will send it off in the direction it was pointing. The twist is that you can stop and change direction of your fishing line anytime you want, allowing you to navigate the level whilst collecting coins and treasure chests, and avoiding cavern walls, electric eels and jelly fish until finally you hook that tasty fish.
As has become tradition with these types of puzzle games, it is possible to score up to 3 stars on each level based on time taken to complete the level, gold coins collected, and how many knots or fishing line segments were used to catch your fish. This will have you coming back to the game looking for the most efficient way through the maze like levels.
The levels start off simple with messages in bottles introducing the new features as and when they appear, but soon the levels turn tricky. Levels will require you to find red anchors to help burrow through cavern walls. You have to manage your way through rapid water flows, where your anchor will be dragged in that direction even if you did not want it to. Black holes also appear and will take your anchor from one black hole to another, and in later levels these black holes will change their destination, so you have to time your entry to get the exit that you need.
You can easily see how to catch your fish, though catching it and 3 starring the level is the challenge. Once you have 3 starred all the main levels there are challenge levels where you have to hit a target fish using only one rope.
Captain Cat features Game Center integration and you can taunt your friends on twitter and Facebook by posting your high scores on them.
I found that I fell nicely into the “one more try” mode without getting frustrated, especially with the quick turnaround when things go wrong, and the desire to cheer up your fishing moggy. I would pick it up throughout the day for a quick 5 minutes and found that I would always make progress.
My only complaint is that the anchor is a little small so ensuring the anchor goes where you want it can be tricky. The first couple of levels have a little guide and it would have been useful if there was an option to leave that on, this would be helpful especially for younger game players.
All the characters are well animated with many nice touches. Captain Cat displays a range of emotions depending on your success or failure and will happily point out the fish to you if you do nothing for a while. I particularly liked the “for sale” sign that appears when I hooked the shellfish from his shell.
If you are a fan of puzzle games (or Kool Kat Jazz) that you can drop in and out of, then this game certainly worth a look.
8 Jazz hands out of 10