A Cat Named Dog Demo

Cats can be very gracious and silent when they want to be, especially those that need to fend for themselves and hunt mice or birds. However, most house cats are pretty lazy and inexperienced when it comes to climbing on things, which is obvious when they try anything too daring after a big meal. On the other hand, they don’t need to use that particular set of skills, since they can survive without it if the owners take care of them.

A Cat Named Dog is an arcade platformer in which you play the role of a cat trying to survive the harsh reality of being abandoned by its owners for a few hours. The game is not very polished at this point, since there are many annoyances and things that are just plain wrong, but there’s potential here if everything is improved later on and more content is added along the way.

The story begins when the owners of the cat go shopping and forget to come back for several hours, which is when the kitty decides it is time to go looking for them. Naturally, the outside world is pretty dangerous for a house cat, or at least it appears to be. Dogs and spikes are its main enemies, both of which can be avoided with speed and agility.

When it comes to the actual gameplay, there’s nothing new under the sun, since it’s all about jumping over spikes and avoiding the falling dogs that act as platforms as well. The frustration kick in because of the annoying controls, because not only are they laggy and imprecise, but they also fail to receive your input entirely sometimes, which causes you to fall into the first pit.

The graphics are very simple as well, which is technically not a problem in most platformers, except that there’s not much else to distract you in this case. The background stays the same throughout the level, and since there is only one level to talk about right now, it gets boring rather quickly. There’s also no music included, although that’s only a minor problem in this case.

In the end, A Cat Named Dog was released to the public a bit too early, since there’s not enough content to keep you busy for more than a few minutes. On top of that, the gameplay is not polished at all, which is yet one more annoyance you have to swallow.