Fort Meow (Game Review)

The concept of Fort Meow is just too adorable to pass up. A unique cartoon style of physics-based tower defence as you build a fort out of various household items to defend Isa from the cats that desperately want to sleep on your lap.

Fat Cat incoming!

Isa goes to spend her school holidays with her grandparents, only to arrive to an empty house. Not surprising as her grandfather in having surgery at the hospital. So Isa heads up to the attic, her favourite place in the whole house to go treasure hunting. She finds her grandfather's journal and begins to read, but suddenly a cat jumps on her lap, stopping her from reading. There are more cats coming, desperate to stop her from reading her grandfather's journal. Why are there so many cats and why are they so desperate to stop her? The story is quite cute and does a good job of at least giving some sense of progression in the game, though overall it's not that compelling.

The real driver of this game is the physics-based gameplay. You have to construct a fort out of various household objects using a limited amount of resources cleverly designed as 'time'. You're not actually on a time limit, but it reflects how long it takes to get each item. You can only have a limited number of each item and everything has various hit points and special abilities. Items range from simple objects, such as pillows and tough coffee tables, to more exquisite items such as the foam dart launcher and washing basket. The various kinds of cats that the game has (six in all) will force you to change tactics. Fat cats are very destructive, requiring you to place bean bags to repel them. Melon cats come low and fast, taking out the sides of your fort in an effort to bring your whole structure crumbling down. To me, the best part of this game is the fort building and watching as it attempts to withstand the cat assault. You can't do much except use some special items during 'Defence Mode', which makes watching the assault that much more nail-biting.

Explore the house to unlock new items for your fort.

In all, Fort Meow just encompasses everything in a perfect little package. It plays directly into your childhood (or adult) fantasies of fort building all while in a well-drawn cartoon style. Everything is just done so well, but the game is short. I finished the story in about three hours and spent another three unlocking all the achievements. I felt that the value you get from it was worth it's asking price of $8 and I definitely had a lot of fun playing Fort Meow.