Flats Full of Cats Review (PC)

For years I’ve entertained the notion that a good game doesn’t necessarily need a complex structure to work. In the case of hidden object games, you don’t need a plot, a marketing strategy, or a bombastic world that’s teeming with material to convey a message. If you need anything at all, an eye for detail, a captivating subject, and a homely feel that resonates with the casual observer are enough to stoke a fire and snag an audience. Really, you just need an idea like Flats Full of Cats.

Flats Full of Cats illuminates a sickly but graphically adorable world where mischievous feline friends and fever dream dioramas roam freely. More to the point, it builds on a creative idea that you don’t need to think too deeply about to understand, let alone appreciate. Without needing to reinvent the wheel, it quickly finds comfort in a familiar yet universally accepted concept. Cats, being at the heart of its centerpiece, form its identity, and a common theme of hidden objects, crisp line work and bubblegum-like biomes give it that heartbeat. For a free-to-play puzzler, there isn’t much else that you can ask for.

As its title openly implies, Flats Full of Cats is, quite simply, a game about (and this won’t come as much of a surprise to you) flats, cats, and neon-soaked stages that hold the power to either make you sick to your stomach, or give you the impression that you’re under the thumb of a highly intoxicating recreational drug. With a treasure trove of overtly bright pinks, blues, and greens to underscore its world heritage, it quickly establishes its unique identity as a bizarre, sweet, and yet, oddly, visually appealing art piece that knows what it is and precisely what it wants to achieve.

Flats Full of Cats has everything that it needs to be labeled a short, to-the-point, and enjoyable game that can be replayed and soaked up for several hours, give or take. With each of its fluorescent “floors” boasting hundreds of cats for you to find and more intricate line work than an architectural blueprint, the game delivers a bulky puzzle that, when all’s said and done, isn’t exactly starved of jigsaw pieces and opportunities for players to switch off, unwind, and sink their claws into the heart of a good old-fashioned hidden object game.

Aside from its loaded ground floor—an area that is available to explore for free, thankfully—Flats Full of Cats also offers a variety of themed expansion packs, each of which include a fresh collection of apartments, themed rooms, and of course, cats. For example, the Stars & Oysters Pack features three additional rooms, each belonging to a fisherman, an astronaut, and a chef, naturally. Elsewhere, you have Capes & Curses, which essentially serves as its own fairytale-inspired DLC, with rooms that belong to The Beauty and the Beast, The Three Little Pigs, and Little Red Riding Hood. And of course, there’s more to the apartment complex, too, with several additional themes all in the pipeline for future installments.

Flats Full of Cats plays out like a typical hidden object game. On each floor, you have a sizable pile of feline companions to locate, a theme that corresponds with the apartment interior, and an option to alternate between two distinct modes—Standard, which serves as the primary, stress-free version of the base game, and Expert, which uses the same rooms, but smaller subjects and tougher-to-spot cats. In addition to the two core modes, you also have Time Attack, which allows you to tackle the same floors, but with a timer that documents your progress. Thankfully, the Time Attack mode isn’t a mandatory for beating the game, though it does add a good amount of replay value to the overall experience, naturally.

For a hidden object game that stores all of its assets in an apartment building, Flats Full of Cats crams a lot of fine details into each of its floors. The base game, for example, offers an extensive look at the various layers of its world, with multiple rooms that each bear their own distinct personality, properties, and unique details that align with the owner’s interests and career choice. And, to give credit where it’s due, each room delivers a stunning finish, with hundreds of objects and meticulously crafted nooks and crannies that can keep your eye distracted for a lot longer than the average puzzler.

Above all, Flats Full of Cats is an excellent, albeit visually eccentric game that manages to juggle the hallmark elements of a traditional hidden object game with a unique art style that, in all honesty, makes the likes of Adventure Time look a little barebones. With a clear sense of what it wants to be and what it wants to accomplish with the facets at its fingertips, it clearly makes for an ideal fit for the genre. The only thing that I’m eager to see in the near future is the upper floors. Clearly, there are more cats to this world than the average one-and-done canvas. Here’s hoping that the developer will continue to build on it.

Verdict

Flats Full of Cats frames a meticulous collection of neon-drizzled, feline-coated apartments that each bear their own unique identity and eccentric style, all with the aid of a simple-to-use, stress-free gameplay system that not only feels good to sink your claws into, but also gives off the impression that there’s a lot more to unearth on the upper floors of the complex. With that, it seems like an easy game to recommend to the casual puzzle and hidden object fanatic.

While there’s clearly no shortage of cat-centric hidden object games on the market in this day and age, Flats Full of Cats does make for one of the more visually appealing chapters in the book. To that end I’d say that, if you are looking for a series that combines traditional gameplay with a distinct neon theme and quirky dioramas, then you have no reason to look any further than the corridors of this fever dream-like universe.