I’m a cat lover and a sucker for kittens. The cover of Purr Pals melted me, so did the idea of having a Nintendogs type of game with cats instead of dogs. At the same time, I was curious to see what kind of interactions would be available, since I get quite a few of these “lessons” from my own two cats.
Purr Pals begins by letting you pick one of the 40 breeds of kittens, modelled after the real things. Then you customize your kitten by picking the fur color, eye color and whisker color (a bit weird, green and pink whiskers were available). Then you pick the gender of your kitten, and it’s interesting to see how the physiognomy of both male and female kittens differ. Lastly, you give your new kitten a name, and you’re off to take care of it.
Kittens will have different personalities according to their breed, but you can change that by interacting with your furry friend. For example, the more you play with it, the more playful it becomes. The cat’s personality traits are shown in a bar graphic where you can see what your pet demands the most. My virtual Nini is a nut for grooming, so I spend most of my time brushing her, but it seems like she is never clean enough.
The kitten’s needs are shown in another graphic, which is similar to The Sims, except in this case, the emptier the meter is, the better for your kitten. If a particular meter is yellow or red, it means you have to tend to that need.
Basic kitten care includes giving it lots of love, grooming, cleaning the litter box, playing and feeding. Everything is done with simple touching and dragging of the stylus, except when your personal advisor interrupts you to explain something (you must press A to continue). You can also use a couple of simple voice commands to get your kitty’s attention. Saying “here kitty” will make it come close so you can pet it, and you can say “bad kitty” to scold it for doing something bad.
Your interface is extremely simple. The squirt gun is used for scolding when your cat misbehaves. The question mark shows your cat’s needs and wants. The dollar sign shows your piggy bank and how much money is in it , and everyday you are given a base allowance to help with expenses. It’s not much, but you can earn bonus money if you’re taking really good care of your cat.
The rest of the menu is pretty self-explanatory. Love, feed, groom and play tend to your kitten’s four basic needs. Litter lets you clean the virtual poo and change the litter box. The Extras menu is where you will be spending quite a bit of your time.
Extras are split into six categories: Rooms, Shopping, Games, Customize, Shows and Friends. The Rooms menu lets you move your kitten around the house. The Customize option allows you to dress up your cat with accessories such as hats, collars, glasses and tags (provided you have bought some), as well as change your house’s interior.
The little shopping cart is like a mini-mall. Here you can spend all your money buying food and litter for your cat, toys, clothing accessories and interior decoration options such as floors, walls, fabrics and trim.
You can register your kitten in cat shows. The only thing needed to enter the show is a fee and days of good care for your cat. Your advisor tells you when the show will take place, and on that day you take your cat to be judged (this works in real time). Your kitten is graded according to its mood, so tend to his/her needs before you go. You win a cash prize depending on how well you do, as well as access to more shows.
You will be spending a lot of time in the Games menu, since it’s the quickest way to can earn some cash. There are four mini-games to play and they’re quite fun.
In Alley Oop! you get to play basketball with your kitten. Aim and throw the ball with the stylus and you will see your kitten jump to slam dunk the ball. It’s adorable! Cupid has two cats sitting outdoors at night and a bow and arrow. You control the bow and arrow to shoot at the little hearts coming from the cats. It takes a bit getting used to, but it’s not too bad once you get the hang of it.
Copy Cat is a “Simon Says” game where you have to repeat the movements of your kitten. It will come up on four different places on the cat tunnel (this long sleeve-like thing) and make a different meow. You then have to touch the colored buttons in the right order to reproduce it.
My favorite – by far – is the singing game, I can’t get enough of it. This is music/rhythm game where you have to tap the notes at the right time as they scroll down the screen. There are three levels of songs, easy, medium and hard, and they include lullabies such as Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to complicated opera arias such as Carmen’s Habanera. I especially love the classical music and opera references, and the meowing makes them so funny! I found this game to be the easiest way to make money, since I can get $5 per hard song.
The singing game is also part of some kitten shows, something like Kitty American Idol, I suppose. Prizes for winning these competitions include special coupons that you can use while shopping for supplies, toys and accessories.
As for the Friends menu, I must say my kitty is very lonely. I can never find anyone in range of my wireless to become friends with, so I don’t really know what happens when kittens meet. I’m guessing it will work a bit like Nintendogs’ Bark Mode.
One thing I really like in this game (yes, aside from the singing game) is how the kitten reacts to different things. The animations may not be perfect and in some cases they look a bit awkward, but the main idea is there. Your cat will chase a butterfly around the room, will jump trying to catch the string you’re waving around, will pounce on the toy mouse, will roll over purring when petted, will stand and reach up when you’re opening a bag of food.
The game also lets you adopt up to five kittens, but unfortunately, you can only interact with one at any given time. The kittens won’t be together in the same room ever. This was a bit of a disappointment, since I love watching my cats playing together, and I would have love to see my virtual cats interact with each other too.
There are a few awkward camera angles when the kitten gets close to the walls or behind some furniture. In one occasion my cat was stuck in mid-air when I decided to pet her as she jumped down from the counter, and on another, she was through the wall with only her rear end showing. It eventually reset after the affection session, but it really was weird. I also experienced random lock-ups while entering the kitten shows, the screen went all white and the game just stopped.
The sounds actually got one of my cat’s attention, both the purring and the meowing. I don’t know if he could actually see the kitten on the screen as I played with it, but he kept sniffing my DS over and over, trying to see where the sound was coming from. He also pawed it a couple of times. The meowing didn’t sound as realistic as it should but it wasn’t too bad.
Aside from needing a few technical improvements, I only wish there were a couple more games to play, more songs in the music game and a few more customization options for fur patterns. But if you’re a cat person like me and went crazy over Nintendogs, you will also find plenty of enjoyment in Purr Pals. Just don’t expect it to be as in-depth or flawless as the famous puppy sim.
Special thanks to Michael Meyers and Crave for providing a copy of this title.