Doctor Cat (Nintendo Switch) – The test

What do you expect from a five euro game? A pleasant short adventure? An original experience but with limited content? And what do you expect from a game released for two euros on Steam and which appears on the eShop for five euros? This is the whole problem of Doctor Cata puzzle game developed by Headway Games and therefore available for five euros on theeShop.

Before starting the test, we would like to point out that the game does not offer any French translation. An average level of English is required to play Doctor Cat.

Abysmally empty content

Doctor Cat is a puzzle game in which we play as a psychologist cat. The concept and gameplay are very simple. Cats will come and talk about their problems and we will solve a puzzle to help them.

After solving the puzzle, the psychologist will come out with two or three clichés about life and… that's all the game offers.

For example, we will have a cat who comes to see us because he has an eating disorder (in this case, binge eating disorder). The cat psychologist then says that we will try to find a solution, and a puzzle begins.

It is enough, depending on the difficulty chosen (easy or normal), to reconstruct the image in front of us. Difficulty increases the number of puzzle pieces, but to be fair, the puzzle pieces are pretty simple no matter what you choose.

Once the image has been reconstructed, the psychologist will then speak to come out with very clichéd sentences.

For our patient suffering from ED (eating disorder), the psychologist tells him not to worry and that they will establish a schedule together to regulate the patient's diet. Because eating healthily is important. Magical, right?

After these three sentences we are already on to the next patient with a psychologist who may be very good at puzzles but who obviously has no real intention of helping his patients.

There are twelve cats in total. Each chat ends in less than five minutes, making the total lifespan less than an hour…

You will have depressed cats, cats who struggle with anger, or even cats in full mourning.

What else can I say about this game? The content is poor, the gameplay close to nothing, and the story almost non-existent.

Doctor Cat is just a hassle that makes us believe in a great adventure with cute little cats but which ultimately has nothing amusing or enriching.

Impossible to recommend, regardless of the price

Even for five euros, the game is not a great operation and you risk being greatly disappointed with the experience offered.

The game is not translated into French but given the almost absence of dialogue, you only need an average level of English to be able to understand what is happening.

What does the price difference on Nintendo Switch compared to the PC version justify? Hard to know. Doctor Cat is not tactile and the version on the Japanese console does not add anything more.

The graphics are very basic: we have a room with the psychologist, cats and twelve puzzles which are quite simple. The images on the puzzles are quite successful, representing the cats in their life problems.

There is a serious lack of progress in Doctor Cat : we would have found it more relevant to have initial puzzles, representing the cats with their problems, then other puzzles showing us the evolution of the patient until recovery.

It is certainly the desire of the developer Headway Games to offer the minimum and we unfortunately cannot support these games which are just trying to scam the player.

Soundtrack level, it's difficult to judge Doctor Cat. There is only one piece of music that repeats throughout the entire adventure. This piano music is not unpleasant but here again we feel the lack of passion in this project.

Why not offer songs adapted to each character? Again, we already have a sketch of a response and it is not flattering for the developer.

Attached, a fourteen-minute presentation video so you can form your own opinion.