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Kitty Disastrous

Platform(s): PC
Genre: Platformer
Developer: Rocket 5 Studios
Release Date: 2016

About Brian Dumlao

After spending several years doing QA for games, I took the next logical step: critiquing them. Even though the Xbox One is my preferred weapon of choice, I'll play and review just about any game from any genre on any system.

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PC Preview - 'Kitty Disastrous'

by Brian Dumlao on Oct. 2, 2015 @ 2:00 a.m. PDT

Kitty Disastrous is game about love, adventure, calamity and being a cat.

You'd think that a game named Kitty Disastrous would be similar in nature to something like Catlateral Damage. The latter was all about wreaking havoc in a house, much as cats are wont to do, and the name sounds like you'd be doing pretty much the same thing. In essence, you are, but at least in Kitty Disastrous, it seems more purposeful. We checked out the game in its first public appearance and came away smiling.

In the short demo, you're a purple cat lying around in the street when a ferret startles you by crashing into a garbage can. Once you make contact with one another, the connection is there, but she runs off. Intrigued, you give chase, saving the ferret from one predicament after another until you two are finally together.


The first thing that'll catch your attention is the game's overall look. The environments continue the aesthetic of games like Tearaway and LittleBigPlanet; you can see the drawings of things like windows on cardboard, and trees are pieces of paper stuck together at odd angles. The human characters are also pretty stylized and seem like exaggerated drawings. Only the ferret and cat come close to being realistic, and that's if you consider purple fur to be a normal thing. Overall, the look is eye-catching.

From what we could play, the game is a mix between a 3-D platformer and a classic adventure game. You have free movement for your cat, and while you can paw at things with the touch of a button, you're not going to be fighting off enemies with those claws. Instead, you'll explore the world and try to find the tools you need to save the ferret from impending disaster. As the title would suggest, though, you do this by causing mayhem of your own.

One example is when the ferret is hanging over a dough kneading machine inside a store. Breaking the glass pane window is the only way to get the animal out, since the baker is too busy sweeping to notice the animal's impending doom. You notice that a cop is about to write a ticket for a repair van that happens to have an open hatch on top. Getting inside reveals a toolbox with a wrench in it, and if you use that wrench on the cop's scooter, you'll eventually cause her to lose control, sending the scooter flying toward the window and freeing the ferret.


The puzzles in the demo aren't exactly brain teasers, but what makes them work is the thought of the cat causing all of this mayhem and looking cute while doing it. There were certainly some loving sighs from the crowd as the cat went fishing for keys from a pocket or brushing up against a wrench to make it move; the animations helped make the scenario look adorable. Seeing the cat drive a van and wreck everything was also hilariously absurd. It also helps that there were several items in the game that were simply used to amplify the cute factor; moustaches, top hats, dead birds, and cigars can be found and equipped to make cat lovers squee in glee.

Kitty Disastrous is off to a pretty promising start. It embraces the odd concept rather well and adds some good gameplay to show that things are on the right path. It also has a very good stylized appearance that helps make the impending destruction look cute. The game is planned for sometime in 2016, and we can't wait to see how it progresses.



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