KoroNeko

koroneko is a puzzle game where you rotate jars to fit into a 'key hole' to rescue the friends (animals, plants etc) who have been locked away by the witch. the game makes use of different mechanics as you progress through the levels making some harder than others. there are main levels and hidden levels with hidden achievements that go with them, these achievements are not hard to miss as you progress through the game. the levels took me between 1-20 minutes depending on the complexity, the final level however where you must control 6 different friends at once took me a good 35-40 minutes to fully complete (this happened purely by luck i should add). one thing to note is that this game does not go towards the games featured in your steam profile game category (this might be something that bothers you) and there is between 3-7 hours of gameplay depending how long it takes you to beat the levels.

Un juego de puzzles muy cuqui que aunque parezca sencillo tiene algunos niveles bastante complicados. Cuando no tienes ganas de jugar a nada y quieres desconectar, está muy bien!

KoroNeko is a cute and unique puzzle game that I found myself enjoying far more than I thought I would. The way that KoroNeko operates is that you have a creature stuck in a cube jar with a top that matches a circular piece on the level grid you have, your goal is to match them together. This straightforward mechanic is then added upon with certain stages having unique mechanics to change the way you play (sliding ice, teleporters, disappearing spaces, etc.), it works well in creating unique puzzles. There is nothing I can complain about as far as the mechanics go, but the puzzle design deserves some criticism. In general, I prefer if a game has a scaling curve of difficulty, however, KoroNeko had a pattern of 9 easy to solve followed by 1 level where you have two creatures instead of one that suddenly makes it noticeably harder. It kind of feels odd, but it makes sense based on the way that the levels are organized so it is forgivable however the final level is something else. All other levels that conclude a stage have two creatures and at most two added stage mechanics; however, the last level uses all 5 mechanics and all six creatures. That is a massive jump in difficulty and one that I was not able to manage. Perhaps it is the ‘tism, but I couldn’t figure it out, and it kind of frustrates me, because it is one thing to get to a mid-point and realize, “Oh I am not really getting this and this may not be for me,” and a different thing to be like, “FML I am on the last level and this is harder than anything else and there is likely story locked behind this that I am not going to experience, which is sad because I am literally one level away.” Difficulty scaling is important and this game lacks it anywhere at all. Speaking of a story that I may never get to finish; it is simple and purely visual. A jealous strawberry witch sees all these creatures having fun and decides to ruin their days by putting them in jars and separating them. And it is up to you to get them all back together. It is simple, it is cute, and it works well with the feel of the game. It serves its limited purpose and serves it well. The music is fitting and the sound design is simple. You might get annoyed by some of the consistent sounds of moving around the puzzles, but I never had an issue. The music is simple but it matches very well thematically, it is well composed, but never really stood out to me. It is pretty standard background music and there really isn’t anything wrong with that. Artistically the thing most people will realize immediately is that it is in a cutesy style and I think it nails that aesthetic. All the model work is simple, but it works well with the clean style. The animations are a bit lackluster though, everything feels a bit stiff and I wish that there was more expressiveness. The only major complaint I have is that there is an after-effect that creates this faux 3D glasses superposition effect on certain objects, often those not centered upon, and I think it looks annoying and ugly. Such a complaint is minor though, so overall I think the game is quite good-looking. Overall KoroNeko is a good puzzle game with a great final challenge for serious puzzle game fans at the end. I think the game is priced well for the amount of time I played, though that may be inflated by the roughly 2 hours I used to try and solve that last level. I am sad that I was not able to complete it in the end, but my lack of ability does not make a game bad. As always I am thankful that the developer was kind enough to give me a copy to review as I always find it fun to play games that I normally would not have sought out on my own.

A cozy game with very nice art style. Puzzles I encounters was varied from too easy to moderated.

KoroNeko was super fun and the puzzles had the right amount of difficulty (barring the last one). I can't get over how adorable and lovely the visuals are; I'm very fond of this type of art. The levels being on their own floating stage felt like the perfect environment. The puzzles were not too challenging. For the harder levels, the best way is to visualise what the position needs to be on a certain tile and work from there. Each world is distinctive not just in its design but in the new mechanic it brings, e.g. portals, ice tiles and switches. The rotating tiles confused me too much. It's a lot harder to work backwards when you have rotating tiles thrown into the mix. Of course, sometimes I just ended up at the right place by pure chance. As with similar puzzle games, the levels are usually going to be a mix of: - working every part out logically - subconsciously wandering towards the solution - solving it by a fluke The majority of puzzles require you to move one character only. But on the last stage of each world, you will have to move two characters at the same time. That proved to be more troublesome, but still okay! Just wait till you get to the ultimate last stage and have to move six characters at the same time. SIX! With ALL the mechanics included. That took me two hours, when all the other levels were a breeze in comparison. And yet despite this sudden ramp up in difficulty (and insanity) it didn't sour my experience at all. Thank goodness it was a one-off, though. Give KoroNeko a try if you like cute puzzle-solving games - especially if it's on sale! It deserves to be more popular.

Very cute and pretty game design! The levels are all different and get harder the higher you get. The last level really was a challenge but I made it after a few hours of losing my sanity. :D I recommend this game!

One of my favorite Saudi indie games! Solid 7.5-8/10 I find myself coming back to it frequently and recommending it to others. The visuals and music are nice, there's a cute light narrative to it, and the mechanics are fun! There might be some puzzles that you can brute force or solve accidentally, but I don't think that's the case for all. The development team is also very friendly and responsive. I had an issue with the achievements, and I messaged one of the developers, and it was fixed very quickly. I look forward to the rest of the games this studio releases!