It’s Saturday, which means it’s Cat-turd-day!That’s right, MatGubbins is back (did he ever go away? Ed.) with THREE feline-based Keyword Challenge crap games, which I’m reviewing in one go while the rest of Sqij Towers is off having a good time at a party which I wasn’t invited to. I expect they’ll only mess up the carpet again anyway. I wonder if anyone’s ever actually used the CAT keyword for anything else other than printing the word “CAT” in one byte? I did use it recently when I’d forgotten the name of one of sunteam’s disk files, but that was in +3 mode, so it doesn’t count.
Cats, then. Aren’t they adorable? The way they scratch you with their cutesy little claws, the cutesy way they cruelly massacre the local wildlife, the way they leave cutesy little poos in the bath… this all sounds like I’m being sarcastic, but I’m actually playing down the fact that I’m the real-life male equivalent of the Crazy Cat Lady from the Simpsons, who would quite happily up sticks and move to this Japanese island:
Yes, I know cats are evil, sadistic bastards, and dogs – man’s best friend, loyal, faithful, intelligent – are far more deserving of my affection, but dogs smell awful, and dogs go “RO-RO-RO-RO!” instead of the far more aesthetically pleasing “purrrr-rrrowrrrr”, and dogs are always going around humping everything, so quite frankly dogs (and their owners) can fuck right off.
The first offering in this tabby trilogy is another Clint game entitled Flickin Clint – Snot On My Cat. Poor Clint has caught a rotten cold (from evil Dr. Foreskin no doubt) and there’s a cat whose meowing seems to irritate Clint. Must be a dog person. Weirdo. So you have to make use of all that lovely green snot and flick it at the cat to stop the caterwauling. It goes without saying that Mat has employed Chunk-O-Vision yet again, but the green gloop all over the title screen is a nice touch:
There’s no real instructions, but after a bit of key-bashing I work out the keys are Q, P and Space. What we have here is a battle of wills – man versus moggy, each armed with a deadly weapon. Clint has his mucus, and the cat has his meow. The odds are stacked in the cat’s favour here – although Clint has a seemingly infinite amount of nose-glop to fling at the cat, it doesn’t actually kill, just maims. Whereas all the cat has to do is go “MEOW”, and Clint dies of blocked sinuses.
It’s a bit like an upside-down Space Invaders, except with a little furry boss who doesn’t seem to die. I couldn’t seem to hit Steve the cat (if it is Steve – it could be Brian, or Graham, or even Alan the cat) more than a handful of times, but being a lover of the pussy (F’nar! Ed.) perhaps I didn’t really want to.
On to crap game number two…
Next Cat Up Or Down is another guessing game along the lines of Play Your Cards Right (higher or lower?). A Chunk-O-Vision cat appears on the left-hand side and you have to work out whether they will go up or down. Predicting the behaviour of cats in real life is almost as difficult as predicting what deKay will type next for one of his Famous Crap Games Throughout History, so at least here you get a 50/50 chance of getting it right.
This is a one-trick pony of a game, but once again Mat has fleshed it out with some brilliant characters, my favourite of which is Tripod, the three-legged cat – although it’s a shame the odd-eyed David Bowie cat wasn’t called “Meowie”.
The final game in this tortoiseshell triumvirate is Put The Cat Out, where Clint returns and proves that he’s actually not such a bad chap after all. The cattery is alight, the cats are on fire, and Clint has to throw buckets of water on them to put them out. Run out of water, and you have to run over to the reservoir on the other side of the screen to refill.
It’s a pretty simple game, but quite addictive – and I genuinely shuddered when I failed to save one of the cats and was confronted with this:
That’s one hot pussy I definitely don’t want to see again!
So in summary, these three games really are the dog’s bollocks! (Shouldn’t that be the cat’s… oh, never mind. Ed.)
Score: 27 (lives) out of 100
Download here: Flickin Clint .tap, Next Cat Up Or Down .tap, Put The Cat Out .tap
And if you haven’t had enough of SpecCats yet, watch and listen to this:
I kind of experienced a Schrödinger’s Cat game somewhere here, but perhaps it is too morbid even for the CSSCGC with a guessing game whether the cat is dead or not.
Err.. expected, not experienced!
That’s the yet to be written, but already titled 10 char game DEAD CAT OR NOT. Maybe in the style of deal or no deal, 14 dead (or not) cats, 1 alive (or not) cat, all in sacks and a canal to chuck them in. An hour long game that could quite easily be played in 10 seconds.
I would watch an episode of Deal or No Deal with cats in the boxes.
Noel: So, Suzanne, you’ve eliminated boxes 1, 5 and 7. All of them contained dead cats.
*ring* *ring*
Noel: Hello?
Noel: Yes, she is doing well.
Noel: Yes.
Noel: So, Suzanne, the banker says you’re doing really well. He sounded a bit worried.
Noel: He has offered you a half-dead moggy with fleas for that box in front of you, box number 14.
Noel: Are you ready for the question?
*Suzanne nods*
Noel: Suzanne, for one half-dead flea ridden moggy, deal or no deal?
Suzanne: No deal.
*audience cheers*
Noel: OK, next box
Suzanne: Box number 8
Noel: Box 8. Gary. Do you think the cat is this box is dead or alive?
Gary: I think it’s alive, Noel, I can hear it meowing.
Noel: OK, Suzanne, Gary thinks the cat is alive. Gary, can you open the box please.
*Gary opens the box, a cat jumps out*
Noel: Oh, Suzanne, I’m afraid that’s a live cat.
*Suzanne sobs uncontrollably*
Noel: That’s taken out the last live cat.
Well, you get the idea with that.
393 cats.
I cheated though.
30th snot hitting the cat releases the “end of game” effect!