Slide Cats

 A while back I said that I had seen other slide puzzle games like Haru Cat Slide, and I figured I should try a few and see what other kinds of options the game makers may have added to this simple puzzle type.  I ended up finding another cat-themed one, called Slide Cats.

The game play was so much like Haru Cat Slide, it was almost comical.  The art was up a notch and it was wrapped in a kind of secret agent vibe.  I guess this time you're trying to stop some alien from turning the cats into zombies.  Like usual, the story is pointless.  But it has so many of the same features: same grid size, same cat sizes, frozen cats, unmovable cats, cats that countdown and freeze other cats, cats with gifts, and blue cats (instead of purple) that zap all the cats around them.  There is a character at the top who has a "power" to zap cats when needed, but this time there is a clear progress bar showing the recharge level of that extra effect.  In Slide Cats, the blue cats can trigger a chain reaction and affect much larger areas.

The main difference is the scope of each game.  In Haru Cat Slide, you get one chance and then you get a score when the grid finally jams up, with one chance to watch an ad and continue.  You also have an option to spend coins to start on level 5, 10, 20, etc.  In Slide Cats, you progress from one planet to the next, where each planet has a number of points to reach and you can resume your trip any time.  The first few had goals of 500, 1000, 5000 and 15000 I think.  It looks like the two games have the same three power ups.  Slide Cats has a pet and other pets can be unlocked: the first pet adds +1 point per row cleared and the second pet unlocks at planet 4 and helps speed up the recharge of the main power.  There are probably other options at the top or bottom of the screen.  The sound f/x in Slide Cats are more purrs and chuffs that the meowing in the other game, and the music has a  mellow James Bond style.

There were other slide puzzle apps, of course, mostly with cartoony characters trying to match abstract gems.  The one I wanted to see most was Slidey, but after loading, it crashed when I clicked the very first item, so it didn't make the cut.

So far, I have seen no other strategic additions to the basic puzzle type, but I also can't think of new obstacles or powers that would make sense.  Maybe a cat that moves back and forth each turn if there is empty space, maybe a cat that grows or shrinks over time, or a cat that melts all frozen cats when matched (to counter the one that freezes them in the first place).

Nov 9 update: I went looking for an update to Slide Cats but it has not been updated since last October.  So, it looks like it's early access but going nowhere.  I don't know if it will ever be updated, which is a shame since it's the cleanest implementation of the slide-type game we've found, and had a lot of potential with minimal noise.  It's unbalanced in the player's favor since you can rack up 20000 gems after a few days, which can buy you about 300 power ups, each adding 5-10 more minutes.  Fun though.