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[werekarg]

Play Purrtastic Four in your browser!

Purrtastic Four is a physics puzzle, with a minimalist design. The goal is to place or toss the cats so they all end up in balance. 30 levels are available for now.

The game is part of series of 4 balancing physics puzzles in which I've tried to re-discover the sub-genre and come up with fun game-play mechanics.

There is a little bit of a back-story of the cats (and the actual photos of them!) which you can find it on my blog.

Thanks for playing!

[jostvise2d]

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[starjung]

Hey I checked out your game. I think it shows promise as a physics and puzzle game, but it could be optimized to make the experience more rewarding. My main issue is with time/speed: Checking takes long, cats falling down are not moved back to the inventory instantly, the movements of the bar and launched cats is slow. I doesn't have to be ultra-fast, but the general experience was a bit too slow for my taste, which is why I didn't want to continue after 3 levels.

[PseudoFanboy]

I agree with starjung, checking for level completion does take a while. It's understandable to have a 'grace period' to make sure the cats aren't just thrown in quickly so the level can be 'completed' before the stack can topple, but it needs to be a faster turnaround.
Maybe an automatic check to see if any cats aren't stable (ie. are moving relative to the platform they're meant to be placed on) when there aren't any cats left, or a 'level complete' button that is greyed out until the check returns a success. Another option is speeding up the physics of the cats when you 'complete' the level to make the time it checks shorter, though that would visually show it all moving faster. Maybe a compromise between multiple approaches is possible.

The speed of the cats falling is also a bit too slow, slingshotting them doesn't feel very satisfying as it is. Increasing gravity and adjusting the speed at which cats are slung would feel a lot better. Especially since most moves in the early levels involve making a choice then waiting to see if it paid off, shortening the amount of time the player is left doing nothing is very important. This may also extend to the speed of the moving bars.

If there are other types of limitations in further levels, it may be worth putting a different one in the early stages instead of 'can only place here'. It feels a bit too constrictive too early, and made the first two levels identical in solution except for an added timing choice - which, as above, took a little too long to pay off to feel satisfying. A lot of puzzle games have the first few levels have different structural solutions to get the player used to making different balancing choices and get them 'into' the physics of the world, as it stands now the first few levels almost immediately teach the player to watch and wait while things fall into place - ironically not always the place they're meant to be, and the cycle frustratingly begins anew.