Last night my dog dug a hole under the fence to the yard. He ended up playing with a neighbours dog. Said neighbours dropped him off after much stress and nearly having a friend drive out all the way up here.

Anway, in this game you play a cat! A cat who plays in a game about themselves. There's very little cat things to do unlike other cat titles I've played here, but Pix does not go out of bounds until allowed. Good Cat.

The game is a simple concept eggecuted splendidly. Run through levels that link infinitely*, run over eggs to hatch them, and deliver the hatched ducklings to the target to "free" them.

Once all eggs are hatched, you run into a wall portal. The level zooming in on a single square, itself containing a whole new level. And then this repeats, over and over. This is not a criticism, with the level sets being fixed you learn the most efficient pattern on each run. And when that timer runs out and your run ends. zooooooooooooooooooom! It scales all the way out back to the start, and the player gets to enter in a high score name like the arcades of old.

With each run you learn to shave seconds off your time per zone, allowing you to dive deeper into video ducklings. What sequence to egg collection works best and how to keep your combo up without it crashing. Pix runs at high speed with hi combos, and maintaining Combo Frenzy (and all the colours) at the limit has you speeding around quicker than my aging hands can handle.

But do not fear failing to collect all eggs before you send the ducks off, or crashing into a DEATH SKULL or a mine will only make you lose all the ducks and take a hit to your speed or combo. Try as I could, these did not result in a game over for me.

Of course you can quickly unlock additional modes. Pretty much a requirement of the arcade genres nowadays.

The first involves two players running around the map, stunning each other, and trying to blow each other up with a bomb. Score three points to win. Be default two players play on the same keyboard, so you can play with your horrible shit of a cousin who will elbow you in the ribs to gain an advantage and still get stroppy when the lose. Likely smashing your keyboard.

The second is a the traditional slide puzzle type. Hit a direction, keep moving until you reach a barrier. Except here you collect bubbles instead of eggs and you MUST collect everything before you can deposit them. Otherwise the bubbles get sad. I don't give points, but I'm taking one away for the use of CalArts style of Pix's face in this mode.

From what I could tell there's also (or was) a leaderboard challenge mode. And a 'Nostalgia' mode I was unable to unlock because I suck.

The graphics! Wow, dude, the colours! The screenshots may make it look like a unicorn went on a bender and is now heaving it up just off some tattooists side alley on Hindley Street, but I assure you, once in motion it all makes sense. (may vary for colour and vision impairment)

There's options to change the announcer voice once you unlock content. And various modifiers open a gallery (Which, I'll point out the awesome choice of knowing what is nearly unlocked and allowing the player to jump into the game with the right settings to do so).

But... There's just something about the soundtrack. I like it! It is good! But it does not feel either pumped enough or retro enough. It's a hard thing to balance and get right. Again, there's nothing wrong with it, I just wanted something more intense.

Cat! Pix The Cat!

If you like games like Pac-Man, or retro arcade games with a 201x style look, then take a look at this one. It's enjoyable in 30 minute bursts and has enough to see and unlock to keep you playing.

Game Acquisition: Bundle Stars (Catastrophe)
Platform Used: Steam
Tweet Threads: 1 - 27 August 2022
PC Used: Scorptec Master-RTX2070 2019 MK1

OS: WINDOWS XP/VISTA/7/8
Processor: AMD/INTEL DUAL-CORE 2.2 GHZ
Memory: 2048 MB RAM
Graphics: 256 MB 100% OPENGL 3.0 COMPATIBLE AMD RADEON HD 5000 SERIES/NVIDIA GEFORCE 9000 SERIES/INTEL HD 4000 SERIES OR HIGHER
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Storage: 1 GB available space
Sound Card: OPENAL COMPATIBLE
Additional Notes: INTERNET CONNECTION REQUIRED FOR THE GAME ACTIVATION