Unlike the exhilarating action-packed film Catch Me If You Can, Cat Me If You Can sees you hunting for cats instead of a cunning Leonardo DiCaprio. The premise of the game is simple, if somewhat absurd: you stroll around in black and white environments in an attempt to find a certain number of hidden cats. To prove that you’ve located one of the little rascals, you have to take a picture with a fancy Polaroid camera. Every cat you are able to “catch” this way transforms into a fully coloured version of itself, which is a handy indicator to remember which ones you’ve already found.
The scenery in which the investigation takes place is rather stunning: a beautifully rendered 3D environment, with a great amount of detail and a real sense of place. The demo is situated in a sort of medieval village, complete with a smithy, market stalls, a little pasture, a village square and all sorts of fun little additions that create the sensation of a lived-in space. Sadly, however, the performance is currently not ideal. Even on low graphics settings, I was unable to obtain the framerate I would have expected for a game of this fidelity. Similarly, on Steam Deck, it used a lot of power even on the lowest settings. However, as this is a demo version and the game is still in development, I am hopeful that the developers will be able to iron out these optimisation issues.
The demo starts with a short tutorial explaining the controls, which work great on both controller and mouse and keyboard. After this, you get access to a full area of the game: Tabbyshire. It’s an adoring place to explore, accompanied by some delightfully relaxing music. During the tutorial I was unsure about the game mechanics and the underlying fun factor, but when playing through this area I was pleasantly entertained. Trying to find cats in all the nooks and crannies is incredibly satisfying, and the feeling of suddenly spotting one in an awkward position after thoroughly examining a location gives a massive spark of joy each time. The act of searching also forces you to consider all of your surroundings, which helps to appreciate the little details that are present throughout.
There is a minimal amount of puzzling involved in the form of “quests”. For certain cats to appear, you have to first find a few objects or interact with a specific item or switch. While the idea is interesting and certainly welcome to keep things varied, the execution is far too basic to have any real effect on the gameplay. While searching for cats, I almost automatically stumbled across all quest items. A more elaborate version of this mechanic would certainly be welcome.
This type of game does have a clear pitfall, though: failing to find something for a large amount of time can lead to frustration, an emotion you want to keep out of a cosy game as much as possible. Luckily, the developers implemented a great hint system that you can activate at any time: a radar that will ping the closest cat’s location. This feature uses a timeout system, so you have to wait for a bit before you can use it again, though you can modify its behaviour and timeout length in the settings or disable it completely for a more purist experience.
For a game about photographing cats, I was a bit disappointed by the limited ways to frame your targets. You can only take pictures of cats or quest objects. If you simply want to snap a beautiful view, you are out of luck. More annoyingly, even taking a picture of a cat is quite restricted: the cat always has to be in the middle of the frame. I was attempting to put some more creativity in my shots by having them be in a corner, but this is sadly not possible at the moment. As the game features a way to save your favourite pictures, I would love some more freedom to put my own spin on them. As it stands now, the only options you have are from what angle you portray them and at what zoom level, leading to a collection of quite similar depictions.
While I genuinely enjoyed my time with this demo, the experience also felt rather static to me: the whole area is frozen in time. While a few components do move after acquiring certain quest items, this makes the frozen state of the rest of the world even more apparent. This gives the game a bit of a sterile feeling, which is in contrast with the warm and cosy feeling the game tries to convey. Maybe the finished product will add some more movement. For example, a small animation for each cat when they are found. Still, this is a promising preview, and I’m looking forward to seeing the final product.
Cat Me If You Can is due to release in Q3 of 2026. The game is available to wishlist on Steam, and a demo will release on April 8th.
