The idea behind the TouchArcade Game of the Week is that every Friday afternoon we post the one game that came out this week that we think is worth giving a special nod to. Now, before anyone goes over-thinking this, it doesn’t necessarily mean our Game of the Week pick is the highest scoring game in a review, the game with the best graphics, or really any other quantifiable “best" thing. Instead, it’s more just us picking out the single game out of the week’s releases that we think is the most noteworthy, surprising, interesting, or really any other hard to describe quality that makes it worth having if you were just going to pick up one.
These picks might be controversial, and that’s OK. If you disagree with what we’ve chosen, let’s try to use the comments of these articles to have conversations about what game is your game of the week and why.
Without further ado…
Super Cat Tales 2
If anyone reading TouchArcade is shocked by this pick, you really haven’t been paying attention. We absolutely loved the original Super Cat Tales (Free), as it checks a lot of boxes that really get us going ’round these parts: Great pixel art, a super agreeable pay model (very optional no-ads IAP), an interesting control method, and cats. They’d really have to screw up the sequel for us to not also love it, and I’m happy to report that the game is more of the same with some clever new additions- Which is always my favorite king of sequel. It always sucks when a sequel is so much better that there’s not any reason to ever go back and play the original, as it’s like a bunch of bonus content if you only discovered a game by its second release.
Anyway, the most unique thing about Super Cat Tales 2 is probably still the control scheme. We’ve talked about it a bunch on our podcast, but it’s sort of amazing that ten years into the life of the App Store there still hasn’t really been a “best" way to control platformers. There have been some good virtual control implementations, and tilt-based schemes, but I like what Super Cat Tales does a lot. Basically, to move right or left you hold that side of the screen. Climbing over obstacles happens automatically and if you need to jump you double tap in a direction to make your cat run, then it’ll jump when appropriate.
It’s weird, and feels a bit unintuitive at first as my brain seems hard wired to think that jumping needs to involve pressing a button. If you are similar, there will definitely be a few borderline frustrating moments at the start of the game for you, but once you learn the controls things are very natural. Additionally, the whole game is (obviously) built around movement and jumping with this mechanic, so you’re really never in a situation where the controls are ever an issue.
The pay model of the game is super agreeable, with what I’d describe as a tasteful amount of ads (What an odd way to describe a game!) but if they annoy you or you just feel like supporting the developer a $4.99 IAP will get rid of them all. The one thing that’s sort of annoying is that the game seems structured around the idea of viewing ads to continue in a level after you die, but if you pay for no-ads there isn’t really a checkpoint system. It’s not a huge deal but it feels like an odd omission.
Aside from a whole bunch of new content, Super Cat Tales 2 now has a basic item system and different playable cats- Each of which have slightly different abilities which are used in clever ways to get by otherwise impossible obstacles. This gives the sequel a bit of a … low-key Lost Vikings vibe at times, which was really unexpected.
Overall, it’s hard to come up with many bad things to say about Super Cat Tales, and with the sequel being incrementally better, I’d similarly consider it a must-download. Better yet, it’s totally free to check out (and really play forever if you don’t care about ads). If nothing else, it’s worth fiddling with just to see another unique implementation of touch controls in a platformer.
