Cat On A Diet was purchased as part of an experiment in trying out a bundle of games from Indiegala. It is safe to say these are real bottom of the barrel stuff, mostly cheap quick games without even any experimental value.

Thankfully 'Cat On A Diet' makes some effort and was enjoyable. Though nothing much more than the types of games you would find on places like Kongregate. In the end this is not a bad thing, as this game does what it sets out to do, and does it very well.

You play a very obese cat obsessed with eating cookies. I don't blame this cat. Cookies are delicious. Especially chocolate chip. Or double chocolate chip. Or choc-dough with chocolate chip and candy coated chocolate...

But your slave human does not want you to have cookies. Who does this arsehole think he is! Some kind of owner slash master? He's a terrible human!

So, your quest is to grab cookies that are stored in various containers. But on the way you should also collect muffins. Three to be precise. Because getting three and landing in a box of cookies gives you a powerup. Which makes getting to cookies easier. And muffins are delicious too.

And who does not want cookies and muffins? An idiot! That's who!

So how exactly do you get more cookies? Well, you are too fat to walk around, and you did get stuck in a cat flap. Better to have the environment come to you.

Oh, you can be poked, but all you'll get is an annoyed 'mow' sound. This translates to "GIVE ME COOKIES!".

Instead, you use the environment to get the foods.

This is the usual techniques you see in these games. Circles can be pushed and shift things around as they have momentum. Wooden slats can be cut to be torn apart. Slats with nails will pivot on said nails. Screws can be undone, letting gravity do what gravity needs to do. Wooden pieces can be torn off and used to pickup the odd muffin or two. Or three. Because you want three. It means cookies.

As the game progresses, you are introduced to new ways to use these objects. This is done slowly and the first levels with them are very easy, complete with little pictures telling you "DO THIS TO WIN". Later on there is a order to the various objects you click on to complete a level, but I did not encounter any perfect-timing-clicks to get to the cookie jar. This is a good thing, not only are timing/percision levels annoying in a slow paced puzzle game when introduced, you may not end up in a cookie jar should you have to deal with one.

Powerups are granted when you complete a level with the number of swipes under par and by collecting all three muffins. These are:-

• Magnet: Attracts nearby muffins. Great to get a low time and par score by avoiding parts of the level.
• Soap Bubble: Makes you float a pit when poked, useful to jump/skip over areas rather than use the environment as it is.
• Hazard Barrier: Pointless. To be honest, I only used this once, and that was to see what it did.

It does try some new things. Sponges are slightly more bouncy, and can not be cut. Uranium will EXPLODE and send floating objects and even your fat feline body across the room. But not too much. You have eaten a lot of cookies.

Further levels allow you to reverse gravity. You can be poked here, but the direction you move depends on your posture, and half the time you end up going opposite where you intended.

And finally, traps. Prepare to be killed by lasers and spikes. They are thankfully easy to avoid as long as you pay attention to the screen.

Beyond this, every so often you are told about a hidden costume in a level. Somewhere on that map is a crack in the wall. Tapping on this will provide some cosmetic gear. It helps to break the monotony a little, but there is no actual point to them beyond playing kitty dressup. 80 costumes are available to find throughout the entire game, and there is a decent variety to them all.

Finally, if you manage to grab enough stars from a level by getting all the muffins and landing in the cookie jar, you start to unlock bonus levels.

In these you are stuck in a floating bubble and have a time limit to grab the three muffins. There are no cookies here, which is several kinds of madness, so the muffins will have to do.

Clicking on the bubble will boost you around the room and muffins are obscured by various objects you have encountered in the main levels. The timing is not so bad here, and there was only one level where I felt like I was being rushed. Then I realised I could activate a magnet, click on my feet twice and have three muffins in under three seconds.

It's a basic physics puzzle game with an obese cat as the hero. There's not a lot to this one and most people will have played something like it before. But I admit that I did enjoy playing it.

It's not great, but it is not bad or terrible. A nice short game this does not go into any time-attack or precision clicking is a welcome change as there was a trend for this genre to ramp up the difficulty by doing that. A lot of people will find it far too easy, but if you are after something to keep you occupied for a couple of hours, this will provide you with what you want.

That and a craving for cookies. There's a 24/7 servo about 20 minutes from my house that has cookies. I might just have to go for a drive.

Game Acquisition: Indiegala.
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 17 October 2016
PC Used: Scorptec Venom 2009 MK2

OS: Windows 7
Processor: Dual core from Intel or AMD at 2.0 GHz
Graphics: nVidia 320M or higher, or Radeon 7000 or higher, or Intel HD 3000