Fort Meow

Developer: Upper Class Walrus | Publisher: Surprise Attack | Release Date: 2015 | Genre: Adventure / Indie Strategy | Website: Official Website | Purchase: Steam

Anyone who has ever owned a cat will know exactly what happens when the furry critters spot you reading a book. It instantly increases the attractiveness of your lap tenfold and will cause any cat within the vicinity to make a beeline for it. This is the dilemma that Nia, the star of Fort Meow, finds herself in when she visits her grandparents. With her grandmother nowhere in sight and her grandfather in surgery, Nia heads up to the attic of their dusty old mansion, where she finds a mysterious journal. The journal holds valuable clues as to why the house seems to have been taken over by cats, but to read it, Nia has to defend herself against the relentless onslaught of felines determined to sleep on her lap.

The only way to keep the cats at bay is by building a pillow fort from the ordinary household items nearby. Initially, your selection is restricted to mattresses, pillows, chairs, and brooms, but you soon gain access to more. There are more than twenty items at your disposal, from televisions and lamps to trophies, toasters, and grandfather clocks. Some items are larger and more durable, while others bestow special bonuses. However, the gameplay is physics-based, so it is not just what you stack into your fort that counts but where you stack them, too.

The game works like a sort of reverse Angry Birds where your goal on each round is to keep the cats off Nia’s lap. Cats come flying in from the sides of the screen and slowly chip away at your defenses. One poorly placed item can cause your whole fort to come crashing down if you are not careful, so it is vital to safeguard against weak spots. There are six types of cats to deal with, and some items are more effective against certain felines than others. For example, the bean bag chair will bounce away the fat cat that can usually crash through multiple items, while the bubble blower is excellent for the triple kitten threat. Special packages are also occasionally dropped off, providing one-time-use items, such as inflatable pillows or water pistols, that can turn the tide in your favor on tricky levels.

Your resource for building forts is time, and each item you place uses up some. If you run out of “time,” it is time to start the round and see if your engineering efforts were sufficient.

Between rounds, you can explore the house and choose which items to add to your roster. The rooms start in the dark, but clues in the journal point you towards light bulbs that can be used to light up the rooms of your choosing. Lugging new items to the attic requires energy, and you typically only have enough to choose one each time. Rooms can be unlocked in any order, and overall, the game’s difficulty curve is quite gentle. We didn’t have any problems completing the rounds, and only the last level, where you are on a strict timer, can give casual players any trouble.

Visually, Fort Meow is a very good-looking game with a beautiful, family-friendly art style. The cats look suitably adorable, and the way that the attic decorations change as the game progresses is a nice touch. Most of the story is conveyed via the journal entries you unlock, but there are also a couple of nice cut scenes. The game’s overall visual style reminded us of the type of stuff often found in children’s books, which is not bad. The soundtrack is also very good and features catchy tunes that perfectly capture the game’s mood. The music never becomes annoying, but this could be because the game is short. We managed to complete everything in about three hours, but there was never a dull moment.

The controls work well enough, and constructing your forts is as easy as dragging and dropping everything in place. Rotating objects is done via the mouse scroll wheel, but we found using the arrow keys on the keyboard easier for this task. Stacking items requires you to balance everything carefully; accidentally pulling out the wrong item or cramming something into the wrong spot can cause a collapse. This can be frustrating, but it won’t be an issue with enough practice. Luck plays a role in the game as we sometimes survived a round purely because of how certain items fell. This unpredictability adds some extra fun to the game, although it is also possible to stick to a blueprint for building and almost guarantee success.

Fort Meow features a few Steam achievements to unlock, but after release, the developer not only listened to feedback to address issues by players but also released a new game mode. This Challenge Mode adds to the replay value of the game and gives players a reason to come back for more after completing the story mode.

We definitely had a lot of fun playing Fort Meow and returned to it after the endless mode was added. The concept is simple enough for players of all skill levels to jump in and have fun, while the story is also surprisingly engaging. The game already had a very affordable price tag, but the addition of the free Challenge Mode further boosted the value for money.