If it’s kinda creepy but more than a little cool, it’s got to be byMateusz Skutnik who wants to take us on another trip to the eerie world of Daymare Town with Daymare Cat. This time, it’s aplatforming puzzle adventure game where you’re tasked with guiding our disheveled and befuddled looking heroine through the Town’s twisting streets. Use the left and right [arrow] keys to move, and hit the down [arrow] to interact with things and go through doors. Any items you gather are tucked away into your inventory at the bottom of the screen, and the game will automatically use the correct object in the proper place for you when you press down in front of it.

If you’ve never been much for Italian plumbers, don’t worry… apart from a few simple sequences, Daymare Cat is less about platforming than it is about exploring and puzzle-solving. Despite featuring the familiar etched lines and otherworldly architecture, this doesn’t quite feel like a Daymare Town title, and it’s not just because it isn’t a point-and-click. It feels a bit less light-hearted and fantastical, lacking the familiar critters and characters, and much more surreal and mysterious. While solving puzzles is largely a case of flipping levers and keeping your eyes peeled for little clues, it’s almost an Alice in Wonderland type experience as seen through the eyes of Mateusz Skutnik. Cat Jahnke’s music, when you discover it, is both incredibly varied and a pleasure to listen to, but not every piece fits the mood and overall setting of the game. Which is, you know. Something where you sort of expect to see Slender Man standing politely just barely out of frame in a window. Waiting. Always watching.

It’s that almost-but-not-quite-freaky vibe that makes Daymare Town so incredibly addictive. That, fortunately, is definitely intact even if the puzzles wind up being fairly straight-forward. Use this key here, climb those platforms there, throw yourself down the hungry gullet in the floor over nyoh. Finding the music in the form of records largely winds up being the whole point of the game, and since the game lacks a map, it’s easy to get lost of where you’ve been and where you’re going. With a rich style and setting, however, getting there is still going to be a lot of fun, even if it isn’t exactly what you expected a Daymare title to be.

author: Dora