When it comes to budget puzzlers, I’ve learned to not necessarily expect too much… and I suppose that’s fair as long as nobody was thinking they were putting out blockbuster successes this way. The thing is, so many in the space have a tendency to fall into well-known and well-worn formulas and styles, just with different trappings. Typically I’ve had some degree of disdain for a fair number of these efforts, as they’ve sometimes felt like re-skins of previous releases, using new clip art to disguise the same thin gruel of gaming enjoyment.

At first glance, I had the same concern with Cat Needs, not so much because of anything directly to do with the title itself, but more tied to what has seemed to become the go-to theme for rehashing the same stuff. Cats, it seems, are popular with casual gamers, the number of feline-oriented titles in the space is pretty impressive. That said, with just a little bit of play, it quickly became clear that this was instead a thoughtful title making use of cats for a targeted and pretty smart reason, earning a closer look.

The idea here is that each of the different breeds of cats in the game have different attributes that you’ll need to take into account while trying to work out each stage. You have the taller black and white cats that are able to leap 2 spaces, a heavier set cat that will seemingly eat anything and refuses to jump, kittens who are just as happy to play with a box as eat, and more. Every level will then plunk down a few cats, along with a food bowl and box or two, and your goal is to strategically move the proper cats around in the right order so that they’ll all end up being satisfied. 

While it isn’t very tough at first, pretty soon you’ll really need to start out each stage by considering who your biggest problem will be… and that’s typically any breed that won’t jump. That means everything else will need to move around and accommodate the toughest customer, and so on. While it may not be groundbreaking, and you’ll likely blow through it all in only a few hours, for the price it feels like a decent deal and at least it isn’t rehashing the same play that so many of its brethren have done already.