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CATO: Buttered Cat is the debut title of Chinese independent develepers “Team Woll”, which got published by CGORES PUBLISHING in September 2024. But to simply call CATO a “debut title” so matter-of-factly tragically circumvents one simple fact: this is not just any ole indie team’s debut title, this is one of the best puzzle games I have ever played. It took me an embarrassingly long time to actually beat CATO, as I started earlier this year and only recently came back to play it through to the end, which is where it really sunk its cat claws into me!

You know the rules, right? Cats always land on their four paws. You also may know of the rule that toast always tends to (quite upsettingly, I might add) always fall with the buttered side to the floor, if you happen to drop it. Well, what if you strapped a toast, with the buttered side exposed, to an adorable tabby cat? The cat and toast would, of course, be stuck in a paradox, and would be thus able to fly indefinitely in the air. Is this science-approved? Probably not, but it is me-approved!

This rule is the basic rule of movement throughout the game, but the real fun begins when the game starts introducing switches that only activate when the cat stands on them, or when the toast lands on them. The end goal of every platforming puzzle room in CATO is simple: find and or activate the exit out of the room/out of the level – most levels are single room affairs, but not all – and reunite your cat and buttered toast to be able to actually climb into the portal/exit the room. The end state, invariably, is always that cat and toast have to leave a room and level together. This, of course, gets tricky with the early introduction of the disassemble mechanic and the aforementioned cat or toast-specific mechanics. The game takes its base concept and runs the gamut with it. The puzzles range from thinking-based switch sequences to momentum-based catapulting of the toast with the help of moving floors and walls. There are also a plethora of secret levels that use a third character “Swappy” who does what his name suggests and can swap the position of your cat and toast in the blink of an eye, which is also used in puzzles to, for instance, swap the cat and toast mid-air for the toast to use the momentum gained from one side of the level, to propel itself past resistant pink jelly, which can only be pierced with the prerequisite speed, or launch into a toaster-based wall switch. Every secret and well (but not frustratingly) hidden challenge provides you with character skins for your cat and/or toast.

I especially love that last part, as I really miss, even with the modern era of indie games, which borrow from and modernize old, charming but archaic graphical styles, mechanics and design conventions, the feeling of accomplishment that you’d get from many old games, where you were rewarded for challenges by changes to your character’s look or entirely new and different ways of play and engagement with the content. There is no puzzle or challenge in CATO that is not rewarded. The mainline challenges are mostly rewarded with being able to experience ever more exciting mechanics, and a feeling of self-actualization through intelligent thought, as is typical for puzzle games of this nature, but the occasional hidden wall will also reward you with either these aforementioned skins, straight away or a whole chain of secret brain teaser mini worlds (about 2-5 levels each) which end with your prize instead. This disparity between big and small secrets also helps to make every secret exciting, as you’re never sure what’s right around the corner. Whether a secret is in a level or not is smartly telegraphed by a little polaroid-esque icon under the level number on the level select screen, that fills when a secret has been acquired. This is just good quality of life design.

The only things I can criticize about CATO is that some of the dialogue seems to feel just slightly stilted in the English translation (though one can always, rather clearly parse what it is going for), the fact that the story is hardly there and very simple and low stakes (though it’s hardly the focus), and that some levels can end in softlocking yourself and having to restart the level entirely. This is no problem at all in the single room levels, but it can be a little more annoying when a room has two or three rooms and you end up stuck somewhere later down the line. Thankfully, while puzzles are genuinely difficult at times, once you have the light bulb moment with them once, you can easily replicate any solution again within seconds. This is a big plus; the game’s puzzles are tiny, but complex, making the thinking and figuring out parts long, but the execution part short, which is a really hard balance to strike for any puzzle design.

It is very hard to design a puzzle game, even more so for a debut team. With how hard CATO: Buttered Cat knocks it out of the park, becoming genuinely one of my favorite puzzle games of all time alongside things like Valve’s Portal, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that the dev team is comprised of either some serious Chinese video game veterans (that I am simply not knowledgeable about, due to the cultural boundary) or some actual, honest-to-god geniuses. Whatever the case, I will be following this team’s future work closely.