Review: Bright Paw |

A puzzle game where you play as a cute little cat? Thank you Radical Forge for giving us Bright Paw. This game is available both on Steam and on your phone, where you’ll pay around 11 Euros (PC) and 5 Euros (Android & iOS). A Nintendo Switch version is apparently on the way as well! Bright Paw is Radical Forge their first self produced title. After working several other games, including Shadow Point and Gang Beasts, they are starting off real strong. Personally, I was immediately sold on this one, and based on my review score, you’ll see that it kept me interested. But hey, let me walk you through what I liked and disliked about Bright Paw!

What we liked!

It’s a cat: If you love cats, this is a given positive, of course. And since I do, Bright Paw got me feeling excited immediately. You play as a cat named Theo, whose owners have been brutally murdered, so naturally, you’re looking for answers. I jumped in the game right away so at first, I didn’t notice the ‘skins’ option on the menu. You guessed it, you can unlock other cats to play as! A simple extra feature, but one that I enjoyed very much.
Puzzles: The puzzles are pretty straightforward and honestly, not that difficult. Your main goal here is to get to the other side of the room, exit, and get to the next one. You get a fixed amount of moves (displayed on cards), and by using turn-based tactics, you need to reach the exit. Obstacles like robots trying to kill you, or lasers frying you, make your task a little harder.
Collectables: Of course, it’s your main goal to get through the room and solve that puzzle. BUT, every room also has one or more collectables hidden in it. These are not just purely to have something to collect, they help you uncover more of the story. This makes it worth it to look around a little longer before exiting the room. The collectables light up, so you can find them easier. Or at least, that’s what you’d think. The rooms are really small ànd the things you look for light up, yet it’s still difficult to find all of them every time. I loved this extra challenge a lot!
Rewind button: Instead of immediately dying when you get run over by a robot or something, you can just hit the rewind button. The same goes for when you’re stuck, by the way. That button is always at your ready, and can be used as much as you want. I liked this, even though this made me think less in advance, because I knew I could just as easily retrace my steps.
Achievements: As you are aware, some games have achievements on Steam. I usually don’t discuss these, but for Bright Paw I’m making an expection. You see, besides the standard achievements like ‘Complete Act 4’ and ‘Find All Collectables’, there are also some achievements that are fun. If you get disintegrated by lasers 10 times, you get an achievement! This way, losing still felt like winning a little. Others achievements include being burned to death and getting run over 10 times. Pssst, there are also 6 hidden achievements for you real die hards!

Somewhere between

Narrator: Okay so, besides Theo, there is the narrator, because you know, cats can’t talk. His job is to give you useful hints from time to time and to narrate the story a little. His helping, I liked, even though a lot of what he said was pretty obvious. The way he talked, I didn’t like at all. It was just too much and it felt a little too fake. I’m sure some might enjoy this, but I found it horrible.

What we disliked

I didn’t dislike anything about Bright Paw. It’s a simple, yet fun game!

Conclusion

Bright Paw caught my attention and was able to keep it throughout the whole game. I really enjoyed playing as a cat, solving puzzles, and finding collectables. I did not gather all collectables, so I’ll definitely be giving Bright Paw another go and focus on collecting them all. The puzzles weren’t too difficult and the game isn’t unforgiving in the slightest, so I loved that. Bright Paw won’t give you a ‘wow’ effect, but it’s a fun little game I can definitely recommend.