| | by Zenalasca, January 11, 2008 |
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After playing and loving Dogz 2, I was wondering what its feline equivalent would be like. Like in Dogz 2, you can choose either a girl or boy, as well as a selection of different cats. You don't get to walk around like in Dogz -- cats don't generally have to be taken on walks. Not that it matters too much, as there are no mini-games and it's easier to look after your pet that way.
Each Catz game is quite short, being fifteen days long (each day being quite short even if you go to bed at midnight), but each time you finish a game there are more cats that you can choose from. Each game takes approx. two hours to complete, so it should take forty-six hours to fully complete the game. As in most simulation games, you are taking charge of a living breathing entity which has feelings and opinions, doubts and habits. Catz is pretty simple in the way that it's easy to predict what will be good for your cat. The hard part is giving it special abilities, which you have to do to fully succeed in the game.
The dialogue isn't that good, but the event scenes are more interesting than in Dogz. All the petz games share the downfall of boring and repetitive stories. At least the intro part of Catz is shortened after the first time you play. It's the story of a boy or girl who is awkward around animals. A girl suggests that you get a kitten which you will look after for a couple weeks. These vital weeks determine what kind of cat the kitten will grow up to be. The cat must have a special ability, or it will become "a bit of a lazy bones."
I have a cat, though I don't see him much. I had another cat who also lived with my mother and ended up running away. The cat before that was sent to the pound by my grandmother, which is a pity because the cat and dog were my only siblings as a one year old. Looking after my own cats has helped me learn to play Catz, and playing Catz has made me realise a few things about raising kittens.
Not that I call this game some sort of manual for feline care, but it could help to teach children that cats and dogs aren't mindless puppets used as play-things. They need to have love and guidance just like us humans do. Every friendship must be a two-way exchange of all the good things that friendship is made of; knowledge, trust, compassion, advise and loyalty, but also personal space to allow scope for one's life outside the relationship -- but again, not too much. Humans and animals sometimes make bad decisions and it is up to their friends not to bar their way, but tell them clearly what they think is amiss. Relationships are the easiest thing in the world to acquire, but they are the hardest to master. You will need to balance on the extra fine line between possessiveness and taking those you love for granted, a thing that you could never learn from from anything but practical experience.
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