Review: The Cat and the Coup

by · August 31, 2022

The trailer for the 4k remaster. This is the version I played for my review.

DISCLAMER: I DO NOT KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE EVENTS THIS GAME TALKS ABOUT, SO ANYTHING I SAY MIGHT BE WRONG.

Everyone has that weird game they place once and forgot about. For me, that game rests on my steam library, beckoning me to replay it. Today, I finally did so.

The game makes amazing use of design, going all in on its artistic vision. The game looks like it was a collage of Islamic patterns and figures. It is a perfect nod to the game’s story. As an added bonus, the entire world feels like a tapestry.

An Interesting Life

The game is centered around Mohammad Mosaddegh’s life in his final years: mainly the time he spent while a coup was being plotted by the CIA.

The Beginning of the game. Credit belongs to Peter Brinson

BUT, you don’t play as Mohammad. Instead, you play as his cat. The game starts on Mohammad’s deathbed (yes, you heard that right). After waking him up, you must guide his spirit through the various rooms in this strange world before returning him to his body. The cat has limited movement, as the game’s puzzles are simple in nature. Each room has a different moment in his life.

Spoiled Milk

The one thing that I do not like about the game is that it is so short. The first time I played it took me 24 minutes to beat it. When I replayed it now for this review, it only took me 12. It is so short I really only consider it the length of one level.

Another important thing to note is that I was playing the 4k remaster. This version came to be in 2018, later becoming a free update to the base game. The game had a lot more uniformity: all the oil barrels had the same grey shell, and only the necessary items were given a colorful pattern. But the background was pitch black. Every item stuck out like a sore thumb. It was an overuse of contrast. And whenever oil showed up, it was near impossible to tell what it was supposed to be.

A tutorial for the original version of The Cat and the Coup. Notice the empty backgrounds.

The remaster of the game, however, suffers from the opposite problem. There is so much variety it is often hard to focus on the room the cat is actually in. Yes, the game does an amazing job with unity, as well as emphasizing the rooms you are playing in. But it is hard to do anything but stare at barrel #23 at the last puzzle

The first time I played the remaster, I didn’t notice the photos on the barrels. Credit belongs to Peter Brinson

I am very happy that the 4k remaster fixed the problems that the original suffered from. If this game ever got any more updates, I might suggest changing text color or adding outlines to certain rooms to make them stand out instead of blending in.

Final Thoughts

All in all, The Cat and the Coup is an experience you need to see to believe. It is a great game if you are short on time or need inspiration for a collage. But if you are easily distracted or hate clashing patterns, then maybe look for something else.

Get the game on Steam.

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