Hidden Cats in New York

I have a soft spot for games that know exactly what they are, and Hidden Cats in New York knows it down to the last purring pixel. Nukearts Studio's micro-budget hidden object entry drops you into a sprawling, hand-drawn monochrome cityscape - the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Empire State Building, the whole postcard - and asks you to do one thing: find the cats. That simplicity is the point, and it lands. The two modes split the experience cleanly. Normal gives you 120 cats in fixed spots and three hints, which is a gentle, pressure-free first pass through the illustration. Advanced is where the craft shows: 200 cats placed in randomised positions, 12 special cats that unlock six bonus levels (a Smellie Cat Cafe, a Rooftop, Ninja Cats Headquarters, the Metro, a Museum, and Town's Park), and 20 city people scattered across the scene to earn additional hints. The pop-culture winks are generous - King Kong on the Empire State, the Ecto-1 rolling past in traffic, Marilyn Monroe on a street corner. Finding each one lands with a tiny, satisfying click of recognition. The hint economy in Advanced is fair on the main map but stings in the bonus levels, where each stage gives you exactly one hint and the cats are often tucked behind objects you have to click to reveal first. The colour-reveal mechanic is the quiet masterstroke. The canvas starts as a purple-grey line drawing, and every cat you find bleeds a little colour back into its surrounding block. Clear an entire building and the whole facade lights up - which also tells you, with no extra UI noise, that you are done there and can move on. It is an elegant design choice that doubles as a progress tracker. The audio is its perfect companion: the ambient soundscape shifts depending on which corner of the city you are panning across, street chatter layering under chill jazz, with a small meow each time a cat pops into existence. It creates something that feels genuinely alive for what is, technically, a still image. A few rough edges are worth flagging. A bugged cat in Advanced mode has been a recurring community headache - it can highlight the wrong area of the map, leaving players scanning the right zone and finding nothing. A guide or a second playthrough usually resolves it, but it should not exist at this stage of the game's life. Fast clicking can also drift the view unexpectedly, which breaks the meditative rhythm more than it should. And the city-people objective in Advanced mode - where you match figures against small portrait thumbnails - splits opinion; some find it charming, others treat it as busywork interrupting the cat hunt. For the audience this is aimed at - winding-down sessions, low-stakes evenings, perhaps a younger family member sharing the screen - those complaints are footnotes. The hand-drawn art is genuinely lovely, the pacing is patient without being dull, and Nukearts clearly builds these with care. At this price point and runtime, demanding more feels churlish. If the bonus levels occasionally test your patience with pixel-precise hiding spots, that is also, arguably, where the charm lives.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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