Megadev's fancy feline is back in a sequel to 2009's cat nomming adventure with even more arcade avoidance action. Time 4 More Cat follows a cat that wanders through a hole in a fence one day and stumbles across a strange force that alters his reality. Suddenly, he finds himself in a strange realm where people only move when he does, food falls from the sky, and collecting mysterious glowing orbs imbues him with very unusual powers. Will he ever find his way home?
Whatever game mode you select, the cat always follows your mouse around screen. The objective of the game is basically unchanged; eat food, avoid people. Touching people results in failure (although the story mode gives you three lives), but since they only move when you do, you can pick your course carefully. Don't go too slowly, however, as food that falls from the sky has a timer on it, and the quicker you eat it the better.
As you progress, obstacles become more frequent, and more dangerous, from whirling plastic bags that follow you to bulky vehicles that are hard to avoid. Collecting the white orbs that appear grants you a single use power, such as Push or Teleport, and the ability changes the more orbs you gather. Using one power burns all the orbs in your possession, so think carefully about what's more useful for you.
Considering how simple yet lovely the original was, it's impressive that Time 4 More Cat manages to improve on it without piling on so much that you lose the addictive ease and simplicity that made it popular to begin with. The art is beautiful, soft, and surreal, while the soundtrack only adds to the dreamlike atmosphere. Forcing a three strikes rule to the story mode feels like it may be too restrictive, since you have to start all over if you lose. But with seven different modes to choose from and a stellar presentation, Time 4 More Cat is exactly the sort of true to form and hard to put down, simple sequel we like to see. Come on, there's always time for more cat!
Walkthrough Guide
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In case anyone else is insatiably curious for a guide:
Hints & Tips
==Basics==
Progress Bar: when you walk around or eat things, white dots grow across the bottom of the screen. (Eating things at a higher value = faster progress growth.)
Portal: When Progress Bar is full, a white portal appears. Walk into it to the next level. (Careful, you can still run into people or objects when you're walking into the portal.)
Pause Screen: To pause the game and see the menu, change the window for a moment. You can also just click off the screen, but that may be dangerous since your cat follows your cursor.
==Orb Power-Ups==
Crystals at the bottom of the screen display how many orbs you've gotten. More orbs = different powers, but each power is single-use. Every time you die, your orbs reset to 0.
Push: Click to activate a momentary white glow that pushes all obstacles a short distance away from you.
Teleport: Click once to pause. Click again where you want to teleport.
Pause: Click to pause the motion of obstacles for a few seconds. You can go on moving, but they don't.
Bomb: Click to eliminate all onscreen obstacles. (More will enter again as you move.)
Invincibility: Gives you a few seconds of invincibility from all obstacles. (A beeping will start when you click; after about eight beeps, invincibility abruptly wears off.)
6. 100K Bonus: Gives you 100K more points. (You might as well click it and use it at this point, since any more collected orbs won't give you additional stuff until you use up this power-up.)
Story Mode Walkthrough & Ending Spoilers
Different words in the white screen at the beginning of each level. As far as I can tell, it's randomly generated, with no effect on the game.
Level 1: Dark field with white birds. (These flap away when you touch them, no harm.) A few fast walkers (blue men) and slow walkers (teal women) appear.
Level 2: Grey street with sidewalk. Fast walkers, slow walkers, and super-fast bikes (orange).
Level 3: Purple square with a lamppost. Fast walkers, slow walkers, bikes, plus diagonal walkers (grey) and very slow street-sweeping vehicles (tan).
Level 4: Street crossing with stoplight. All previous walkers/vehicles around, plus plastic bags (olive) that follow you. (These disappear eventually in order of appearance.)
Level 5: Park path and sidewalk ("look both ways" written on ground). All obstacles present, plus little dogs (bright gold, move in swirly/circular patterns but don't chase you per se). As progress bar increases, patches of the ground become what looks like molten gold. That doesn't affect you when you touch it, though.
==Ending==
After you complete Level 5, the portal appears and takes you back through screens representing Levels 1-5, each peopled with frozen figures. Nothing happens if you touch these figures--you walk right through them. After a few seconds, another portal appears leading to the next level(s).
This continues until fake-Level 5. Instead of being peopled with frozen obstacles like fake-Levels-1-4, it's peopled with white cats just like you. Still, try as you might, you can't touch them or interact. Eventually, you fade away, and the other cats start walking around, still not interacting with each other. An ending screen appears, with varying text. (The one I got that made the most sense: "Time divides us all.")
A surprisingly philosophical—and depressing—end to a very gritty-pretty little game.
Posted by: vyrastra
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March 31, 2012 5:25 PM