Разработчик: Cranktrain
Описание
"There’s humour here in spades... It’s fun, fast, colourful"
- Rock Paper Shotgun
The Cat Machine is a game of logic, and also cats. Cats riding around on Trains. As we are all aware, the stability of planet earth's orbit around the sun is maintained by an enormous and very secret underground machine. A machine where cats of various colours ride around on trains, as cats have done since time immemorial.
Without this secret mechanism, the earth would undoubtedly fold in on itself, probably with a rather satisfying popping noise, but also with the unpleasant side-effect of then ceasing to exist.
The Cat Machine places you in charge of designing that contraption.
A fun logical puzzler, the game is all about working on a solution, the correct design that will 'process' multiple configurations of cat trains. Cats can only travel on tracks that are the same colour as the cat itself (of course) and the cat at the front of the track decides where the whole train will go. Once a cat has traveled along a coloured track, it flies away, as cats are well known to do. The goal is, for every train, make all the cats, including the white one at the end, fly into the ether.
This is the only way to save the earth.
- More than fifty levels!
- So many cats, you wouldn't believe it. It has, I think, all the cats.
- Beautiful, beautiful music!
- Utilises high-fidelity, 60fps Advanced Cat/Train Simulation Technology for maximum cuteness.
- Support for Windows, Mac, and even our Linux friends.
Поддерживаемые языки: english
Системные требования
Windows
- OS *: Windows XP
- Processor: 1.6GHz Dual-core
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated graphics
- DirectX: Version 9.0
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Mac
- OS: Mac OS 10.7
- Processor: 1.6GHz Dual-core
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Linux
- OS: Ubuntu 12.04+, SteamOS+
- Processor: 1.6GHz Dual-core
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: Integrated graphics
- Storage: 500 MB available space
Отзывы пользователей
Send cats around convoluted machines on trains to launch them into space and correct the Earth's orbit? Who are you to question the Science Cat?
The puzzles are good and can be surprisingly hard. The idea is absolutely insane, in the best way possible. The cats are cute. What's not to like about this game? Lovely. Definitely recommend.
Overall, I am a cat person so I enjoy playing it.
After playing for a while I realized that this game sometimes is not only purely about the logics and how you arrange the orders, but also about the space and the position of each hub. Because the limitation of the space will make some solution not working at all, and cats will collide with each other. So the seemingly workable solution is quite delusional.
Think before hand is important but trial and error is more essential in the context of this game.
Build coloured bridges in just the right way to spin off all the cats as they traverse the level.
Its a bit janky to control, and I was initially a little disappointed at how simple it was, but when you get in to more complicated levels and work out the logic of it its very satisfying to solve and there are a good amount of levels to go through.
Worth picking up, especially if its on sale.
If you like interesting puzzles, this is the game for you. I only ever play it once in a while but the puzzles are interesting and take some thinking.
A fairly simple concept; get the white cat to the end, after you've got rid of all the other cats by running them along rails of their colour that you place. The trick comes in by only having a limited number of points that you can connect the rails to, equiring you to use each rail optimally, lest you run out, and the white cat is forever trapped to run laps of the railway forever.
There aren't so many levels, but there is enough variety and complexity in them for it to engage you for awhile. Something happened with my save, requiring me to restart.
Though the game isn't incredibly pretty to look at, I wouldn't call it an eyesore either. It's serviceable. It would have been nicer to have some accessability options instead of colour-coded cats, but this did come out in 2015.
The biggest, most irritating flaw I have found is in the placement of tracks; you click one of the arrows leading off of the pre-existing tracks, and one of your tracks appears, and (at most) three more arrows appear from that, allowing you to select the direction you wish the track to go in (dependent on ways that it is possible for the track to go, of course). Except you have to do this for every piece. You can click and drag to lay pieces down, but I've found this method finnicky at best. You have to remove the track entirely and re-build it to reverse its direction (thankfully removal can be done in one click, and can changing the colour of an already-made track in two).
Though it's usable, it would have been nice to have a more fluid way of building the tracks as that's the only real way to interact with the game itself. Being able to use keys (up / down / left / right for example) would have made building tracks much faster.
Overall, it's an enjoyable game, with some puzzles that might at first frustrate you, making you think it can't be done, until it frustrates you that you wonder how you didn't see the answer before. It hads an internet-pleasing theme, and a not-required-plot (so long as you can get behind cats being placed on trains for little reason).I'm not sure I would be able to justify getting it at full price (and cannot recall how much I paid). Half off? I would have no problem suggesting people get this if they're into puzzles. A preference for cats would be preferred.
The Cat Machine is a great little puzzle game with cats! You have to put the cats of a certain color in the proper place the that they will go to their proper destination. A few of the puzzles were a bit difficult, but overall the challenge was pretty balanced. I would recommend for anyone who likes the genre.
The gameplay is almost equivalent to trying all possible combinations of connections, but indirectly (certainly not through the game's interface, because it's too annoying) so either in your head or through external means. The actual puzzles can almost translate to a problem on a graph, oh but you can't connect some vertices because the rails don't go like that -- and it's actually hard to see when the layout makes some things impossible, so even more trial and error.
So it's a premise that's just not fun, with a whole lot of artificial difficulty.
★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
Feline State Machines-- a gentle introduction to one of the most important underlying concepts in computer science, but the difficulty ramps up smoothly and the later levels will test anyone. Has the same "can't stop thinking about it after the app is closed" appeal as all the best brainteasers.
The Cat Machine is a fun little puzzle game to waste time on:
+good music
+Creative puzzles
+increasing 'skill' curve very high
+lots of CATS
-not too many puzzles
-water graphic can be a bit annoying
All in all a fun little game I can recommend :)
The cats are cute but the puzzles are just so unsatisfying and repetitive since all the levels are based around the same idea, just on larger and larger scales... The conveyor belts are also annoying to use and provide little to no value in the puzzle itself - all that matters is which junctions connect to each other... I've played Flash games that had more variety than this
The puzzles are cool.
The cat theme is ok.
The game is not very long.
The music and soundeffects are horrible.
I recommend the game to people who like puzzles, but...
...it's not worth 9,99€ (maybe half)
ps: I really wish steam had a way of writing a review without having to set a Yes/No recommendation.
A mediocre puzzle game made interesting by the inclusion of cats. They help to give it a bit of personality and essentially a reason to play if you needed one. As puzzle games go, it is reasonable fun, although it can be tricky to finish some levels, leaving you feeling frustrated. That is because it is difficult to visualise how the trains of cats will travel across large maps, and you may have to resort to a bit of trial and error to get by.
The Review:
I actually enjoy this offering from Cranktain. Honestly, I don't play for long periods of time becuase I think I could probably complete this wthin an hour or two. It's fun with sometimes funny man made meows. I don't get hung up on the puzzles to much, but I could see how this could become challenging. I can see how some people would not enjoy this game. Take it for what it is, a great m ini game inbetween your full on games that you are playing. It's like a break from the norm for me.
Music is in the wonky, Disgaea type flow. It's light hearted.
Game play is what to be expected, basic controls and the tutorial if you need it; is easy to understand.
Visuals are very 70's meet the present trpe feel.
Enjoyable
The puzzles are challenging but the controls are minimal and intuitive. No time pressure, and if you botch a solution you can go back and fix elements of it without having to redo the whole level.
The cat aspect is just window dressing, but as a theme it's not shoehorned in or cloying. It's just the perfect sprinkle of cats to enhance the enjoyment of a neat little puzzle game.
This really seems like the kind of game that should have some sort of useful isomorphism to transform it into graph theory and make the puzzles easier. I never found one. I never found any overarching theory that helped me understand the puzzles in this game, actually. During the entire game I barely had any insights that transfered between puzzles. That was pretty weird. I got better at it, despite never understanding what I was getting better at. That, too, was pretty weird.
The difficulty curve is good. I would recommend this, if you're into puzzles. Definitely don't get it if you're not into puzzles, that would be very silly of you. And if you've played enough puzzle games to understand what I was going on about in that first paragraph, then you definitely should play this.
I highly recommend this game for many reasons.
1. It's adorable! There's a scientist cat, custom cats based off of the devs' cats (I assume?), and whenever you beat a level you have some cats singing along! There are so many little things that are adorable. You should pay attention to the cats' screens.
2. The art style is beautiful. It's really colorful and eye pleasing. Each color used has a purpose in the game, wether it indicate difficulty or choice.
3. The puzzles are really enjoyable. I've had more than 5 experiences where I've thought a puzzle was downright impossible for a long time. Yet, I was able to figure it out after playing around with it a bunch. As time goes on you start to learn a few tricks to solving puzzles, yet there is little to no change to the gameplay itself. This is how to do a puzzle game.
I think the only thing that I would have to say against it is sometimes the puzzles are a little too hard. There have been a few cases where I've wanted to throw something.
This is a sweet programming game in disguise that's very satisfying when everything works :) The difficulty can spike at times because of the pyramidal level selection - if you find yourself completely stuck, there's probably a simpler puzzle earlier in the tree that will subtly guide you through the technique you need to use to complete it.
Excellent and whimsical pathfinding puzzler. Also a rare case of a Greenlight project delivering exactly what they promised in a timely and functional manner. Runs great on my Mint 7.2, low VRAM computer.
The Cat Machine is easy to categorize. It's a catchy entry in the catalogue of puzzle games, and will draw you in like Catholics to a catechism. You simply place rails, and cat trains drive along them like caterpillars, with a goal of preventing a catastrophe from befalling the earth. Avoiding the cataclysm is as simple as flinging cats off the train in the correct order. Levels become increasingly complex, and some of the more difficult ones have left me feeling catatonic, but finally solving them can feel cathartic. If you get too stressed out, just take a catnap, have some catnip, and try again. If you like puzzles, The Cat Machine caters to you, and is a real cat treat.
Good and addictive little puzzle game.
Only 3 hours in but it can be frustrating at times. However, completing those puzzles feels like a major achievement.
Concept is also unique, what more do you want than space cats riding trains to stop the earth falling into the sun?
Definately worth a go.
This game has cartoon, brightly primary colored cats. They ride around on colored tracks you build. If you build the tracks right, the cats fly off into space, thus keeping the Earth from going off orbit and killing us all. All of this is underscored with a zippy, upbeat soundtrack that is oddly infectious on its own.
This might lead a casual observer to conclude that this is simplistic game targeted towards children. That observer would be wrong. The puzzles seem like they would be straight forward enough. You can see the trains of kitties that will have to navigate the machine you must build. So just build colors of tracks that match the kitties that must ride them. Simple? Not so much after the first few puzzles. I got stumped four or five puzzles in. Solved a few more puzzles, since the game progression isn't completely linear and that is an option. My brain grew a bit smarter at this, and I was able to go back and finish the one that stopped me. As much as I like the soundtrack, I soon disabled it to better focus on the mentally engaging gameplay.
The answers aren't always obvious, at least to someone with my brainpower. Still, the puzzles do seem doable. It's refreshing to find a puzzle game mechanic that straddles the line between challenging and thought provoking without crossing over to exasperation. All with a cheerfully looney premise, adorable oddly colored cats, and a lighthearted cheerful soundtrack that bring capital letter "F" fun.
About the only negative criticism I can really think of right now is that there really is only just the puzzle build aspect of this game. As far as I can tell no score is kept, solving the puzzles and progressing to the next one is it's own reward. There are, I dunno, 50-ish levels I believe? I'm not looking forward to the day I run out of them. Hopefully in the future there will be some DLC with more puzzles. Also. it would be super if there were steam workshop support so that players could create share puzzles with the community.
All in all this is a very nice little title that seems worth the price. If you like puzzle games I doubt that you'll be disapointed with this one.
8/10
Дополнительная информация
| Разработчик | Cranktrain |
| Платформы | Windows, Mac, Linux |
| Ограничение возраста | Нет |
| Дата релиза | 22.01.2025 |
| Отзывы пользователей | 92% положительных (97) |