Cats Around Us: Giant Cat is the latest wallet-friendly hidden picture game from the cat-obsessed developer Noobzilla. While hidden picture games may not get top billing, let’s dig in for a few minutes and see if this game is a good fit for you.
The game consists of four hidden picture puzzles that tell the story of a witch who finds a giant cat causing havoc in a small town and how she leads the cat to a much safer cat shelter in the woods. The pictures are on the smaller size but are well drawn in a manga style. The puzzles are line drawings on a white background and the cats and puzzle pieces you find turn yellow as you click on them, but these colors can all be changed in the settings.
You begin with access to one hidden cat picture containing 31 cats and 25 puzzle pieces. Unlike other hidden picture games, Cats Around Us: Giant Cat appears to require you to find jigsaw pieces to unlock successive levels, although you can choose to skip this requirement even if you haven’t found any of the pieces. Each cat you click on has a name, some flavor text, and an owner, but the pop-up showing those details could disappear too quickly for young readers. There is a hint button with a cooldown timer that circles an area containing a hidden item if you get stuck. Each hidden picture puzzle has an optional timed mode and the ability to take a trimmed screenshot of the puzzle, which can then be colored in using some basic painting tools.
Conclusion
Cats Around Us: Giant Cat isn’t going to win any game of the year awards, but it does offer gamers a good time for just a few dollars. Older gamers can expect an hour of relaxing gameplay while younger gamers may spend more time with the simpler puzzles and the ability to color screenshots.
This game was reviewed based on Xbox S|X review code, using an Xbox S|X console. All of the opinions and insights here are subject to that version. Game provided by publisher.
