*This game was provided by TikiPod Ltd the game’s developers*

The Story

Aqua Kitty UDX (AK) has a very simple but cute story. The game is based on a world which is ruled by (you guessed it) cats. The cats are mining into their planet’s core in the search of the most valuable and calcium rich resource there is: milk. However, as the courageous cats dive deep down onto the ocean floor to drill for their precious milk, they are attacked by a bunch of mischievous, mechanical sea creatures. These creatures wish to abduct the mining cats and stop the drilling operation. You play as a daring submarine capital who must protect the brave mining cats and destroy any potential enemies. Will the cats succeed in their mission and tap into the vital full-fat milk reserves? Well it depends how good you are at arcade shooters…

The Game

The basic gameplay of AK is a 2D side-scrolling shooter. Your submarine can move up, down, left or right and has two attacks. The first is a normal pee-shooter like gun and the second is a much more powerful but very limited cannon. Your cannon is slowly upgraded over time as you progress through the game’s campaign.

AK has three different game modes: Classic, Arcade and Dreadnaught. Classic is the ‘campaign’ of the game. You go through four different stages with a total of 25 levels. During each level there is a set number of waves you must survive in order to beat the level. The number of waves is usually different from level-to-level getting increasingly harder. However, there are special perks you can gain in each level by shooting a special type of enemy. These enemies drops perks like: health, multi-shots and bombs that help you clear out other enemies. One pro-tip is to leave all the perks until the final few waves and then use them to destroy the tougher bad guys.

As the game is an arcade shooter, each level has its own high score which players can beat by killing enemies and protecting the kitty miners. Throughout the levels there will be between 1-3 miners that you have to protect from jellyfish-like enemies that will try and abducted them. When the kitty is being abducted, it will make a very sad sounding ‘meow’. You must race over to their location and shoot the jellyfish before it gets the kitty out of the water. If you are successful the miner will sink back to the ocean floor and continue his work. If not, that cat’s mining station will be destroyed and you will lose out on valuable points.

Protecting the miners was the real challenge of AK. I thought avoiding and killing waves of enemies wasn’t too difficult. However, racing from one side of the level to the other trying to save a miner added an extra challenge that I really enjoyed. Usually it would cause me to making silly mistakes because I was just rushing past enemies to try and get to the miner. Over time these mistakes would add up, causing me to be destroyed and fail the mission. If you just want to play through the game casually, I don’t think there is any need to save the miners, it just effects your final score. However, I personally thought the game was more fun trying to save every miner and getting the highest score. Getting a high score was important because the game has an online leader board and I got a kick out of seeing my name at rank 48!

Arcade mode has the same map and levels as classic mode, but you have to earn your perks by collecting green gems. When you collect enough of the gems they can be spent on upgrades for your ship. I found this mode fun but thought the purchasing mechanic for the new upgrades was confusing and not easily explained. I couldn’t tell if I could use all my upgrades at once or if it was only possible to use one upgrade at a time.

Dreadnaught is the third and final game mode and is almost like a challenge mode. You have to progress through different stages which get increasingly harder. However, unlike classic and arcade mode, in Dreadnaught you have to destroy huge enemy ships and free imprisoned cats. What’s difficult is that as you try and destroy the ship, you are surrounded by enemies. Plus, at times it’s also easy to blow up your own feline friends. Let just say I didn’t get very far in this mode!

In addition, there is a local co-op mode for two players. I didn’t get a chance to check it out (as I have no one locally to play games with) but it looks like a lot of fun!

What I can comprehensively say about AK’s gameplay is that it embodies the ‘one more try’ mentality. Whenever I failed I always understood what my mistake was and how I could improve. This led to me (more than once) pressing the restart button without even thinking, even when that turn was supposed to be my last. The mechanics are extremely well polished and rewarding to play, making AK as addictive and fun as games like Super Meat Boy but much less punishing.

Art and Music

The art an music were both fine in AK. I would describe them as ‘indie’. The art looked good and was functional but there wasn’t that much variation between levels or enemies. The music was also good but not very memorable. However, I did really like the track that accompanied the Dreadnaught mode.

Problems

One issue I noticed pretty much as soon as I booted up the game was how cluttered the UI is. I think you can see the developer’s enthusiasm for the game in the UI because they want to tell you so much information about how to play it. Then there is added artwork and boxes, which all end up making the UI look, cramped, cluttered and unintuitive.I found it hard to follow the instructions the game was telling me because there was so much text on the screen placed in random places. I didn’t know if it should be read from right to left or up to down. This was also the case with the menus. The different modes are all accessed from the game’s over-world map, which I did’t release till late in the game. It wasn’t easy or seamless to navigate around AK, there was always too many buttons to press.

Secondly, even though the levels are quite small and there is a mini-map, I found myself becoming disorientated a lot in the levels. I would be fighting enemies and hear the cry of a miner. Then I’d look on the map to see which miner was been abducted. However, there was times I’d have no idea where I was on the level. The level’s only visual indicators are the miners, which all look the same and the mini-map. However, because the mini-map is so cluttered with enemies, it was hard for me to see quickly exactly where I was. Mix this in with trying to dodge bullets and it can cause quite a lot of stress! It would have been great if my icon on the mini-map was a bit bigger or maybe even the same sprite as the submarine. This would make it stand out from the dozens of flashing red dots already cluttering the mini-map. Furthermore, maybe if each miner was a different colour then there would have been a stronger visual reference to where I was on the level.

Finally, though the bosses had different patterns from each other, the actual method to kill them was exactly the same for each boss. You had to shoot their armour off until a glowing red core appeared. Then line up your shot precisely to hit the red core and destroy the boss. I just wish there was a bit more variety to the boss fights.

Summary

To conclude, Aqua Kitty UDX is a very specific game in a very specific genre. What Aqua Kitty UDX does well, it does extremely well, with the cute kitties giving the game a lot of charm. In addition, the game’s mechanics are precise, fun, addictive and continuously improve you as a player. Each mode has its own unique quirks and is different enough from another to make them worth playing through. Though the play time is quite short (around three hours), the replay value is very high if you want to perfect a level and climb the online leader boards. What lets the game down is its cluttered and unintuitive UI and its repetitive bosses. Nevertheless, if you like arcade-style shooter games you should definitely pick up Aqua Kitty UDX. I even name the game as one of the eshop’s hidden gems!

Therefore, I give Aqua Kitty UDX by Tikipod my rating of

What did you think of my review? Do you like arcade shooters and will you be picking up Aqua Kitty UDX? Let me know over on Twitter or join the conversation over on Discord.

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