PEGBRJE: Cats are Liquid — A Light in the Shadows and Mon-cuties for All
CUTE ANIMALS
Cats are Liquid — A Light in the Shadows is a cute puzzle platformer made by Last Quarter Studios, an indie studio out of Finland. Players are a curiously round cat with that cutesy cat face permanently on display for all to see. However, this cat isn’t all that happy, as her owner has seemingly locked her in a series of rooms for unknown reasons. With her latent cat powers of climbing and her new unofficial cat power of becoming a liquid, our protagonist tries her best to escape.
Gameplay follows a relatively simplistic strategy of having players jump across different regions while balancing between alternating states of matter. Players will need her liquidity to get through tight spaces and to increase her drop speed, while her solid state is used for jumping and climbing. Climbing is not restrictive as one might think, and any vertical wall can be ‘latched’ onto by holding the jump button and scaled upwards, leading to fun moments staring at the platform above from the side. However, once players realize that climbing and jumping can be done in liquid form, they may end up spending most of their time in this form instead. I know I sure did, as the increased movement helped with jumps and speed. The only thing stopping our feline friend is the colour orange, which colours the spikes, enemy cubes and pools. Touching anything of this colour will cause damage or, in the case of the pool, instant death sending us back to the checkpoint. These dangers can be anywhere, and while our kitty has no idea why they exist she knows not to mess with them.
While platforming throughout these enclosed spaces will give clues as to what to do, it’s the text that seemingly resides outside of the spaces that gives the narration of our cat’s current problem. It talks of her owner setting her inside this place, and her utter confusion with everything along with some cheeky dialogue about how the levels seem to look way too similar. It’s self aware, although a bit immersion breaking when it mentions that the kitty is scared when her expression never changes from that adorable default cat face. The location of the text is interesting thanks to always being in world, but never being truly ‘in world’ if that makes sense; it’s always in a place that cannot be reached, but still feels as if I could’ve interacted with it if I could touch it.
Cats are Liquid — A Light in the Shadows is a small game, even if there are 90 levels to traverse. It’s not a game aiming for extreme difficulty, but one to enjoy a soothing backing track to while turning the cat into numerous states of matter. She can even turn into air!(Why can’t my cat do that?) Regardless, if you are looking for a simple yet cozy experience for all ages, then try out Cats are Liquid to see if it is for you. It’s also available of Android if my internet search is correct, so that’s another way to play.
Mon-cuties for All is a companion simulation title in progress made by Reine Works, the studio that brought us the previous title ‘The Tail Makes The Fox’. In this game, players are themselves as they buy a monster farm from an older farmer after finding that they don’t really want to become a hero and would rather look after friends and monsters. Now, I say this title is ‘in progress’ as technically speaking, the original 0.5 version is part of the expanded game jam iteration (from my understanding) and the 0.6 unstable launch is the newest version going in a new direction. As such, I’ll be dedicating my little overview to both as I didn’t realize there was such drastic differences between the two until after playing 0.5.
For the first iteration, players will be playing a hybrid style of clicking and management, as they will be tending to their monsters while raising funds in the local competitions. To tend to monsters, players will be clicking to reach a certain number, with the power of their clicks being augmented by various items they can purchase like treats. Upon reaching certain thresholds of clicks, the monsters will evolve into their greater forms. This is crucial to make more money at competitions, as the monster’s friendship with the players will dictate what ‘class’ they can enter between beginners and expert. These competitions, on the other hand, are a trivia game of facts based around the monsters in their mythologies, world facts and studio facts. Messing up one answer will automatically fail the competition, forcing players to walk away with the consolation prize. Money won can be used to purchase treats, upgrades and new monsters. The combination of these two mechanics was fun, but the trivia got a little redundant after I figured out all of the answers. Upon reaching the incubus by day 42 the credits rolled, and my time on the ranch was ‘completed’.
0.6 brings a complete artistic overhaul to Mon-cuties, updating most of the assets while cleaning up a lot of the UI elements and text. This can be credited to the engine update that was done, but also thanks to the additional assets that have been added. Players can now customize their avatar more than before with cute bows and colour options, with the store website also cleaning up. Future updates are looking into the trivia mini-game reduction or complete removal, as they are still here at the moment so I’m curious as to seeing what they might wish to replace it with.
I can definitely see the direction that Mon-cuties is attempting to go for with a management style game with casual elements and clicking. It’s relaxing, albeit a bit small due to the fact that it has yet to be completed. Where it heads, I don’t know but I’ll be lurking around to see what happens next. If you wish to follow cute monster ranching, try out the 0.5 and 0.6 versions for yourself.
