Catmaze: This cat is cute but has claws.

Catmaze is a charming, bite-sized Metroidvania made by a solo developer. As far as I can tell, it’s his first game, so it comes with all the hallmarks of a first attempt, flaws and all. While there were some shortcomings, it was an overall decently enjoyable experience.

Living in Serbia for the past five years, I’ve become interested in Slavic culture and history. Naturally, when I learned that Catmaze not only features cats, which I adore, but also delves into Slavic culture, I was intrigued. As a bonus, it was from the same person who made Fearmonium, a game I enjoyed more than I thought I would, despite some bumps along the way.

The narrative is an interesting one, focusing on some heavy themes such as life, death, and seeking vengeance. The story focuses on a girl named Alesta. In the beginning, her mother falls ill, and she sets out into the woods in search of a plant in hopes of curing her, but the remedy she brings back isn’t enough. That night, the malevolent spirit of disease, Mara, arrives and kidnaps her mother. Determined not to lose her, Alesta pledges to journey into the shadowy realm of Nav and confront Mara, intent on reclaiming what was taken and making the spirit pay for her awful, cruel deeds.

My issue with the story was that, at times, the dialogue felt awkward, with a noticeable clash in tone, shifting from metaphorical to blunt and direct, as seen above. I’d imagine it works better in Russian. That said, credit where it’s due: the overall English translation was generally solid.

Don’t let the cute aesthetics throw you off; this can be a tough game, with enemies that can take off nearly a third of her health in a single hit. The game strongly encourages careful, deliberate movements and actions. However, that is easier said than done at times, as I jumped straight through platforms. The game froze at one point when trying to take the pig home. Otherwise, movement was fluid enough, and combat was fairly responsive, though I felt like the hitboxes weren’t always consistent and sometimes failed to register hits.

Otherwise, bosses are fair and reward careful analysis of boss patterns with quick, timely responses. They don’t have too much health, and there are enough upgrades that help ensure you’re ready for the game’s tougher challenges. Three bracelets can be upgraded by a blacksmith to increase strength, defense, and speed. When I first discovered the blacksmith, I was having a lot of difficulty with the game, and just two improvements to defense and one to attack made a huge difference. So, don’t overlook the role townspeople play in your eventual success, as the quests they provide offer plenty of useful upgrades and items. With six animal-based melee attacks and six MP-consuming familiars offering special abilities, there are plenty of strategies to tackle the toughest bosses and most vexing foes. Three passives can be equipped; pick your favorite. I stuck with the one that boosted strength and speed.

Additionally, prayer rune stones can be found scattered throughout the world and serve to increase the power of sun stones. These sun stones, usually located near warp points, provide a temporary HP boost, useful before upcoming bosses. Just be aware that the boost gradually disappears, like a normal HP meter, as you continue to take hits and can only be restored by returning to the nearest sun stone. Seek these out; there are about ten, and I would not have beaten the game without this boost.

One minor gripe with the battle system is that your damage output depends on your current amulet level, shown in purple at the top left corner of the screen (pictured below). When it’s at maximum, your damage is high, but I found myself stuck in an obnoxious gameplay loop at one point where a low amulet level severely hampered my damage. This happened during a section where I had to ride a log and fend off several bats while dodging damage spikes. Normally, two strikes would kill them, but with my amulet level hovering around 0 to 1, I barely managed to scratch them. Collecting white dots helps keep the amulet level high, but getting hit quickly drops it, drastically reducing your ability to damage enemies. It’s a decent idea, but poorly implemented and a little too punishing depending on the situation, though it does put more emphasis on upgrading bracelets at the blacksmith.

As far as the sidequests, one noticeable and unfortunate glitch I noticed was during one of the “defend the town” mini-games, shown above, where waiting at the far left of the screen caused enemies to freeze and stand still, breaking the game’s usual challenge. At other times, enemies were the exact opposite, extremely aggressive, leading to odd, abrupt fluctuations in balance throughout.

The worst part of the game was the two fights with the wolf. Movement was delayed, clunky, and overall, it was not fun at all. These sequences were frustrating. Perhaps a straight-up, traditional battle would have been better, but having to platform with the wolf was cumbersome and not enjoyable, likely where I experienced the most game overs. Oddly enough, when the developer experimented elsewhere, such as the broom-flying section, it was genuinely fun. I would have loved to see that at another juncture in the game.

As I briefly mentioned earlier, the game has an appealing pixel art style firmly rooted in the early 1990s. The cats scattered around the world were the best examples of awesome sprite work, but some of the hideous enemies were a highlight too, though more variety would have been welcome. Menus and general UI were unremarkable, and the game would have benefited from better quest tracking. Backgrounds and dungeon design were slightly amateurish-looking, and how save and warp points were spread out was uneven. Some areas weren’t well covered, and trying to backtrack to some areas with new movement upgrades, even with warp, was still time-consuming.

There are distinct regions, clearly, but I was unsure why they weren’t named and labeled on the map. There are some NPCs, very late game (about 95% of the way), who give hints on where to find missing health, MP, rune stones, etc., and they name regions, but the map does not help by showing the region name when it’s time to warp. By Metroidvania standards, the map in Catmaze is small, which may explain the infrequent warp points, possibly to pad the game’s length a bit. Little is done to help players orient themselves, though question marks will pepper the map at different times in the plot. While this seemed like a generous addition to guide players, there was no indication what each question mark corresponded to, side quest or the main quest, and at one point towards the end, I accidentally progressed the main plot without meaning to, and before I had checked a question mark in another region of the map.

The music was catchy, much like the developer’s other game, Fearmonium, and, in fact, I found myself humming one or two of the songs, unlike Fearmonium. However, the issue with both games is that the songs are quite short, so they will loop around a lot while exploring. Also, some of the sound effects were bad, the most egregious being Alesta’s death scream upon running out of health, for sure something I could have done without, as it is earsplitting and unpleasant.

Catmaze is unlikely to blow anyone away, but it has a certain endearing quality to it that should draw Metroidvania fans in for the duration, lasting around 8–12 hours, depending on whether you aim to finish the story or go for full completion. I would not recommend it to newcomers to the genre, but it is a solid long weekend game for genre veterans looking to dig into something more obscure.