Hidden Cats in London

My first ten minutes with Hidden Cats in London felt almost meditative. The entire city starts as a monochromatic pencil sketch - the Thames, Tower Bridge, the London Eye, red buses frozen mid-rumble - and colour bleeds in, street by street and rooftop by rooftop, only when you find the cats lurking there. That feedback loop is the whole game, and Nukearts Studio has understood something small studios rarely do: the mechanic IS the reward. You don't need a score screen. You just need to watch Southwark go from grey to full watercolour and feel the tiny satisfaction of having caused that. There are two modes on the main London panorama. Normal drops 100 cats in fixed positions and hands you three hints, generous enough that you won't brick a run but scarce enough to feel earned. Advanced randomises 150 cats, scatters 7 named special cats across the scene, and adds 16 Londoners to spot - finding them earns extra hints and, more importantly, unlocks the bonus levels. Those five interior scenes - a Book Shop, Pub, Tube Station, Music Studio, and Palace Room - each hide 50 kittens in far more confined, denser compositions. They feel like deleted scenes from a slightly more mischievous illustrator, and a Christmas bonus stage rounds the set out. The area-colouring mechanic from the main map doesn't carry through here, which is a small pity, but the scenes are compact enough that the absence doesn't sting. The illustration deserves more credit than the genre usually earns. Little things animate: boats drift down the Thames, a train rattles through the station (and occasionally a cat clings to the carriage window, barely visible while it moves - genuine tension), the Tower Bridge rises. The cats themselves are drawn mid-action, stretched or peering out of bushes, each a tiny personality rather than a repeating sprite. The audio sits in coffee-shop territory - upbeat, never demanding attention, the kind of lo-fi ambient mix that works precisely because it knows its own role. A few cats blend so deeply into their surroundings that even a zoomed-in hint-aided hunt turns into a squinting exercise, and on a TV at distance the zoom ceiling feels low, but neither complaint derails a session. Who is this for? Anyone who loved Where's Wally books as a kid and wants a no-stakes, 90-minute wind-down that still has just enough structure to feel purposeful. Achievement hunters will find 44 to collect and the median completion time sits under two hours, which means the game knows exactly when to end - a discipline a lot of bigger releases should study. The community reception across Steam has been quietly glowing, with a rating that hovers near the top of the scale, and it's easy to understand why. It doesn't overreach. It does its small thing with real craft.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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