This is a cute, fun little game. It's relatively short (took me a little less than 6 hours to 100%), but really enjoyable along the way. The puzzles start out relatively simple, but by the end, you're managing quite a lot at one time: what toys/objects each cat likes, which toys/objects seem to take priority over others when more than one preferred item is present, which cats will tolerate being picked up and which won't, how quickly each cat moves, how they behave on the wheel, and even the timing of magic portals. The basic mechanics are easy to pick up, but as you progress through the levels, it becomes necessary to get a little creative. Pure luck DOES play a part, however, as the starting positions and initial movement of the cats seem to vary, and they don't always behave consistently. Sometimes they'll happily follow you while you carry a catnip plant or toy to lead them a short way, for instance, but then the next time they'll immediately lose interest in the object as soon as you pick it up and then turn around and wander directly into a sprinkler or portal instead! That's not a complaint, by the way -- this IS cat herding, after all, and it feels like a pretty good representation of those times when I've had to wrangle my own three cats into their carriers at the same time.
My criticisms are relatively minor. I found the laser pointers to be a little frustrating to work with, because you can't fully control the angle they land at when you drop them. You can guide it somewhat by positioning yourself at a certain angle to the nearest wall, but it never felt like I could do anything to guarantee i would get the angle I wanted. It made 3-starring a certain level feel more frustrating than enjoyably challenging. Additionally, while the controls are simple and usually fairly intuitive, sometimes it felt like you should be able to do something that you couldn't, or some buttons shouldn't be serving double duty. For instance, you can turn to television off while holding a cat, but not while holding the cat treats or laser pointer, because right mouseclick is used to dispense treats/turn the pointer off and on. You'll find yourself accidentally dumping out treats in front of the television, or forgetting to drop your laser pointer before rushing to turn on the tv and get the attention of a cat whom you want to trick through a portal. It's certainly not game-breaking, and you get used to it after a while, but it feels a little clunky in a game that's otherwise simple and smooth.
On the technical side of things, I had a bit of an issue with the in-game volume settings. When attempting to turn the music down in the settings menu, just moving the slider down slightly turned the music down to a whisper, and no amount of moving the slider would turn it back up as long as i was in the settings menu -- yet when I gave up and went back to playing the game anyway, the music was still blaring. I never was able to actually adjust my music volume in the game, and ended up just turning my headphones down a bit (which made me sad, because I love the cat noises and didn't want to turn those down, too!).
Overall, though, I really enjoyed this game. Even though it's short, it's a lot of fun, and I can definitely see myself playing it again just for the pure enjoyment of it. My little cats can wear crowns now! And at the end of the day, isn't that what really matters?
