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.

Mobile Review: Bloons TD 5

Balloons. One of Earth’s greatest threats has never been so dynamic, versatile and…pretty? The only thing standing in the way of the Bloons taking over the world is a troop of very resourceful monkeys. So we have Bloons TD 5.

The TD stands for just what this game is, Tower Defence. Bloons will enter the map from various points and only your resourceful placement of dart-hurling monkeys will prevent them from reaching the end. The design of Bloons is pretty standard for a tower defence, not really trying anything new, but rather putting a quirky spin on it. Looking back on the previous incarnations of Bloons, it really has grown and they’ve taken a lot on board for making the fifth iteration into one very solid game, standing out from the crowded tower defence genre.

The design has evolved to always feel the same; bright colours, simple cartoonish style, but it looks significantly better with each iteration. It has a charming seriousness about it; all monkeys are dressed for war. Your enemy is also extremely resourceful, with multi-layered balloons requiring several pops to destroy or the dreaded regenerating or MOAB balloons. There are several Bloon types, each posing a new problem. Lead Bloons can’t be popped by regular spikes and darts and Camo Bloons can’t be seen by regular towers either. Each map requires careful tower placement to best deal with the Bloon threat.

The tower options are both diverse, but not overwhelming. As with most tower defence games, players will have their favourites and the towers they never touch. Each tower has four upgrade options followed by two upgrade tracks with a further two upgrades, but you can only upgrade one track per tower. Each track transforms your tower into something completely different, usually providing more popping power, or popping more Bloons per shot, though others provide special abilities.

As with most mobile games, there are micro-transactions. Even though you pay for games these days, it’s very common to still be asked for more money. In this era of gaming, I can’t scrutinise a game for having micro-transactions, I can however complain full-heartedly if you have to pay for significant aspects of the game. Bloons TD 5 doesn’t do this, as all items in the game can be purchased with the in-game currency of ‘money’ (creative name right there) and you earn ‘money’ by playing the game, earning more on harder difficulties. Only if you have some compulsive need to get those items quickly, then you’ll never even notice the game asking for your cash.

It’s stylish, fun and challenging, and those things make for a very good game. Each map takes about fifteen minutes on medium difficulty, so it could be a quick time-waster if you need it to be. You can also quit and resume a map at any time between the quick rounds, handy if you want to squeeze in a few on the go.