Catnip For Hidden Cat Lovers
Hoş geldiniz, cat lovers! It’s that time again, as Nukearts Studio, the undisputed masters of hidden cat games are back with Hidden Cats in Istanbul.
That ‘undisputed master’ moniker is hard-earned. You might sneer and say ‘how many hidden cat games can there be?’, but trust us, there’s a whole clowder of them (turns out that’s the collective noun for cats). I’m not ashamed to say I’ve played them all, and Nukearts Studios’ games stand apart for the quality of the pictures, the little nudges of help they give to players, and the geography lessons. It’s safe to say that when Hidden Cats in X appears on the Xbox Store, we immediately curl up on the sofa and start scanning for triangle noses.
The first question that popped into my head when seeing Hidden Cats in Istanbul was the wrong one. I immediately wondered ‘why go to Istanbul?’. Shanghai, Sydney or Dubai made more sense to me. Or I expected something that tied more into Christmas: a Lapland, perhaps (yes, yes, we know there was a Hidden Cats in Santa’s Realm). I think I based this incorrect question on landmark-recognition, that more people would know the skyline of those cities.
Happily, Nukearts Studio know more about making these games than I do. Because these games are so much more than just landmarks, and that’s clear from the moment you boot up Hidden Cats in Istanbul. I don’t presume to know which Turkish instruments are used to make it, but the music of Turkey and Istanbul is immediately prominent in the menu music, and it’s transportive. I was headed to a unique and less explored culture with Hidden Cats in Istanbul, and the music was a fantastic vehicle for taking me there.
A Familiar Prowling-Ground
Hidden Cats in Istanbul fans will immediately recognise everything on the menus. There’s been no fundamental shift to the series: everything is in its right place.
Play starts with the huge, 200-cat diorama of the city. Everything else is locked. So, you’re either methodically moving the screen around to find cats or – if you’re a complete and utter monster – you are freestyling about Istanbul, poking at cats as you see them.
The cracking thing about Hidden Cats in Istanbul is that both styles are supported. Find all of the cats within a subsection – a house or tree, perhaps – and the black-and-white line-drawing will fill in with colour. There’s no confusion: you’ve finished that area and can ignore it when hoovering up the final few cats.
There’s also the recent but no-less brilliant addition of audible ‘meows’ when you’re down to your last few cats and you’ve just entered the proximity of one you’ve missed. They remind me of Crackdown’s sound effects when you were approaching an agility orb. It’s a lovely little wink to the player that hey, champ, you’re getting warmer.
There’s an argument that they’re too much of a handhold. In which case, feel free to turn the meows off in the Settings. I’m of the opinion that people play Hidden Cats in Istanbul for the chilling, and these mechanics definitely facilitate said chilling.
This will all be familiar to Hidden Cats fans, but I like to celebrate them nonetheless. They’re a big reason why the series does so well. But they’re not the only elements that make it all so friction-free. The pictures are so pixel-sharp in their clarity that you can spot cats that are miles away, deep in the background of the picture. There was not one instance in Hidden Cats in Istanbul where I went ‘wait, is that a cat or a bit of foliage?’. Every other hidden cat game gets this wrong.
And the scenes are just lovely. There’s the Turkish connection, as the architecture is foregrounded. It’s safe to say that I have a sudden hankering to visit Istanbul as the Blue Mosque, Hagia Sophia and others look awe-inspiring, yet I know so little about them. And then there are the little geography lessons, as completely skippable pop-ups give a synopsis about what they are and why they’re important to the Turkish people. And, of course, there are the ‘special cats’, disguised among the more common cats.
Exploring The Nooks Of Istanbul
Gather these and you’ll unlock additional scenes, beyond that city diorama. Fans of Turkey will probably guess some of them (and no, there’s no Hairline Clinic). You can visit Turkish baths, a Hookah cafe, a bazaar, mosque and Gülhane Park. These are more concise and zoomed in, with 50-150 cats to find and fewer humans to spot (the cityscape has a few gangly, odd-looking humans amongst the cats). They all focus on the uniqueness of the city and country, with cats hidden in the building details and hookah smoke.
All done, Hidden Cats in Istanbul is no longer or shorter than the rest of the series. We finished in just under two hours, with all the achievements unlocked because we’re not hint-using heathens (sorry not sorry). Importantly, we felt as fulfilled as we do whenever we play these games. For a few quid we had collaborated as a family on spotting cats (“to the left”, “the other left!”), got our sense of reward, and not once did we feel frustrated.
Do we have a wishlist for future games? Sure, we have some wants, but none of them are particularly problematic. We’d love independent save files, so that more than one player could make progress at a time. We’d love the ability to speed up the traffic, so that we could get through the cars quicker. And some sections of the diorama are considered connected (and therefore white until coloured) when they’re distant from each other. But these are tiny drops in the milk saucer. We feel a bit rude mentioning them.
A Turkish Delight of Feline-Finding Fun
Is Hidden Cats in Istanbul going to challenge Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 at The Game Awards? Of course not. But in terms of what it sets out to achieve, and how well it achieves it – well, Hidden Cats in Istanbul is the cat that got the cream. And in terms of delivering a city and slice of culture of which some of us may be unaware, Hidden Cats in Istanbul is a Turkish delight.
Important Links
Buy Hidden Cats in Istanbul from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/hidden-cats-in-istanbul/9NCV2Z9X1L3F/0010
