Cats Around Us: Black Cat

Genre: Puzzle

Players: 1

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Review:

(Note: Review code provided by the kind folks at Silesia Games)

Cats Around Us: Giant Cat is a family-friendly hidden object-style Puzzle game released on PC in 2025 and ported to Xbox One and Nintendo Switch in 2026. This game has players looking for cats and puzzle pieces hidden in monochrome scenes in what appears to be a dialogue-free comic about a man and his… well, black cat.

The presentation here makes use of cute, cartoony 2D line art that colors in with your choice of color when you discover a hidden element. I did feel like the scenes in these images appeared overly-busy and at times difficult to parse, but otherwise the style looks nice. These visuals are backed by your choice of one of six themes that are all varying amounts of upbeat and annoying. This is further joined by meowing sounds every time you uncover a cat.

I have to commend this game on offering some good touch controls in handheld mode including pinch-zoom, as well as decent gamepad controls using an on-screen cursor. No matter which way I chose to play this game, the controls worked well without issue.

When it comes to the gameplay itself, this is a pretty standard hidden object game. The cats and puzzle pieces are not particularly difficult to find, and there’s a hint button with a timer if you’re really having trouble finding that last one or two remaining objects.

The puzzle pieces are used to unlock additional scenes in the comic, with players not only needing to meet a certain threshold to unlock the next scene, but needing to piece together a simple jigsaw-style puzzle as well. I felt like these jigsaw puzzles, while adding variety, were not especially well thought-out – younger kids will likely be confused and frustrated at needing to rotate the pieces, and older players will find the small number of pieces make these puzzles too easy. In addition, the puzzle pieces you need to find seem out-of-place in the otherwise cat-themed hidden object scenes.

I was also frustrated at the way this game pops up windows telling you little bits of trivia about these cats as you find them. While this is a common feature in this style of game, here I felt these windows were overly large, and frequently covered up the next cat I was about to click on but now needed to wait to tap on until the window cleared.

I suppose I should mention another potential complaint here, and that is that with just over 200 cats and puzzle pieces to find overall across five scenes, this game can easily be completed within an hour, or even less if you’re good at spotting hidden objects and completing jigsaw puzzles. However, with this game only costing $3, the length seems decent enough for the price.

Overall, I think Cats Around Us: Black Cat is a decent hidden object-style Puzzle game, but it’s far from the best game in this style available on Nintendo Switch, with multiple frustrations. I do like the concept of a hidden object game telling a story through something like a comic strip, but I think that if a jigsaw puzzle is going to be made a part of the gameplay it should be better-executed, I think the process of uncovering the hidden objects can be better-streamlined (and has been in other games). Plus, I think the artwork here is a bit too visually-busy. In short, I don’t think Cats Around Us: Black Cat is a bad hidden object-style Puzzle game, but I think you have numerous better options.

tl;dr – Cats Around Us: Black Cat is a family-friendly hidden object-style Puzzle game with Jigsaw Puzzle sections separating the game’s five scenes, which form a sort of comic about a man and his black cat. This is mostly a decent hidden object-style game, but the gameplay has some small frustrations and the Jigsaw Puzzle elements aren’t well-implemented. This isn’t a bad game, but you have numerous better options on Nintendo Switch.

Grade: C

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^{This month’s sponsors are Jamie and His Cats, Ben, Ilya Zverev, Andy Miller, Johannes, Jaka, Jared Wark, Gabriel Coronad-Medina, Francis Obst, Kristoffer Wulff, Seth Christenfeld, and Vince Verrinoldi. Thank you for helping to keep the reviews coming!}