Chubby Cat

Genre: Arcade

Players: 1

.

Review:

(Note: This game is included in also in 10 in 1 Games Bundle, along with .cat, .cat Milk, Bruxa, Cats Puzzle, Fly Cat, Him & Her 3, Rafa’s World, Rô, and Scrap Bolts. It is also in Bundle Cats + Dog, along with .cat, .cat Milk and .Dog. It is also included in Cats Bundle, along with .cat, .cat Milk, Cats Puzzle, Chubby Cat 2, and Fly Cat. It is also included in Mega Bundle Cats, along with .cat and Fly Cat.)

Chubby Cat, released on Nintendo Switch in 2022, is a physics-based Arcade-style game where players must carefully time the cutting of ropes holding a dangling fish so that the remaining ropes swing the fish to where the titular chubby cat awaits his dinner. If this premise sounds familiar, that’s because this game is using pretty much the exact same formula as the popular mobile game Cut the Rope. However, as I often say, it’s not necessarily a bad thing for a game to be a copycat, so long as it’s a good copycat. So the question is, is Chubby Cat a good copycat game?

The presentation here is decent if a bit unspectacular, using simple 2D pixel art visuals for the objects and backgrounds. This is backed by a relaxed soundtrack that works well enough for the game, even if it isn’t especially memorable.

As for the gameplay, the first problem we encounter here is the gamepad controls, necessary for docked mode, which are clunky and inelegant for this sort of gameplay, but also inexplicably used for the in-game menus, making that clunky too. I can’t help but wonder if using motion controls in docked mode might have helped here, but we’ll never know because they haven’t been used in this game.

Clearly the gamepad controls have just been jerry-rigged here to provide some way to play the game in docked mode, so the question becomes how well the game works using the intended input method – touchscreen controls. And the answer to that is… serviceable, but not great. For some reason, the touchscreen controls in this game are extremely finicky, and don’t always register your input. What’s more, many of the game’s puzzles use ropes so tiny that they’re a pain to accurately interact with on the Nintendo Switch’s screen.

There’s another problem here too, and that’s the physics. This game’s physics system for the ropes definitely feels like it needs work, as objects repeatedly bounce in place when they’re at rest, often making it somewhat of a crapshoot how they’ll react when you cut them, based on whether they’re in mid-bounce.

Finally, the price. Given that this game is copying a free mobile game, the $10 price tag seems far too much, especially when this game is just going to get occasionally discounted to $2 or shoved into one of multiple bundles this publisher has released. Sorry, no, you’re not getting a good deal in those situations just because the game is normally overpriced.

In the end, Chubby Cat had at least some potential to be a halfway decent copycat of Cut the Rope, but finicky controls and poor game physics in a game that’s all about physics and precision control… that’s a bad mix. Unless you absolutely need something like Cut the Rope on Nintendo Switch, skip this game.

tl;dr – Chubby Cat is an Arcade-style game that’s clearly trying to copy the game Cut the Rope, but unfortunately the touchscreen controls are finicky and unreliable, and the gamepad controls are stiff and awkward. What’s more, the game’s physics aren’t working properly, making for inconsistent play. Top this all off with an absurd $10 price tag, and the result is a failed attempt at copying a mobile classic.

Grade: D+

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