This is my 4,000th post on this site, and seeing as I’ve typically been the Cat Game Guy for the majority of my nearly 8 years with TouchArcade (that crown has since been bestowed on Eric), it seems only fitting that number 4,000 is about a cat game. The cat game in question is called Kitty Lander (Free) from developer Perch Drunk Thugz, and what’s funny about it is it’s not a new game at all. In fact it’s almost a year old. For some reason nobody in our community came across it in the past year, and for whatever reason the developers only just emailed us about it today. (Side note: Email us about your games, developers! We want to know about them when they’re new!) With that out of the way, though, let’s focus on Kitty Lander, a fantastic blending of Lunar Lander gameplay and cats.

Kitty Lander is played in portrait and you touch the left side of the screen to fire your left thruster and the right side to fire the right thruster (or vice versa as an option). Your job is to simply land your ship on a stranded kitty hanging out in the terrain, scoop ’em up, and blast into space to deliver the kitty to the mothership. You’ll need to avoid comets that will crash into the kitties or your ship, and you also must take some care not to go careening into the terrain and blowing yourself up. Rescue as many kitties as you can before you perish.

I love the idea of Lunar Lander-style gameplay, but often these types of games feature ships that are overly sensitive. Even the slightest hard landing will result in your death. Kitty Lander is much more forgiving in this area, which I really appreciate, though you still must be careful not to go blasting into the terrain. The game is more about perfecting your thrusting and the speed and the physics feel spot on. Other than the core gameplay Kitty Lander is pretty bare bones; no unlockables or any real progression beyond getting high scores. That’s perfectly fine by me though as the core is really enjoyable and the game is free with ads and a one-time $1.99 IAP to remove them, so no reason not to give it a shot if you’re into cats and space flight. I’ve also (finally) started a thread for Kitty Lander in our forums if you want to discuss this one.

Here’s to the next 4,000 posts and another 8 years at TA! And to cat games!