Magic Cat Story is a free-to-play puzzle game downloadable for iOS and Android devices (reviewed on iPad here).  In the game you help a wizard cat stop an evil magician from turning all the people into animals.  But storylines in puzzle games really aren’t that important.  To thwart the evil wizard, you must match colored blocks to make them disappear.  While most free-to-play puzzle games are similar to Candy Crush or Bejeweled, Magic Cat Story plays more like a falling block puzzler such as Dr. Mario or Puyo Puyo.

To rotate blocks, simply tap on the screen.  Swipe left and right to move the blocks in those directions.  And when you’re ready to place your blocks into the playfield, just swipe down to make them fall into place.  You can take your time when deciding where to place blocks, as they don’t fall down on their own like most other games of this ilk do.  You can swipe down when you’re good and ready.

Blocks that match four or more of the same color will disappear, and blocks above will fall into place and can make more possible matches.  You have a limited amount of moves for each level, so making combos is essential.  In each level, you’ll have a different mission.  Sometimes you must clear out certain colors of blocks, fruit of the same color, break ice blocks by matching overlapping colors, or make magic books fall to the bottom.  The game does a good job of keeping things interesting and different from level to level, introducing new gameplay mechanics or blocks to keep you on your toes.  In later levels you’ll be able to fill up a meter that you can use to make blocks clear out whole rows, and use other powers as you progress.

For a free-to-play game, it has very few of the annoyances games of this ilk have.  There are no pop-up ads and the game doesn’t pressure you to buy anything too often.  But it does do one thing that gets my goat.  Around level 30 or so, the game gets exponentially harder and you won’t get very far unless you do buy some power-ups and things.  Another more minor problem is the controls.  Tapping makes the blocks rotate, and sometimes when I swipe down, it’ll rotate the blocks instead, which gets annoying.  However, if you’d like to try Magic Cat Story, it’s free so you don’t have a lot to lose!

Kid Factor:

No violence or anything objectionable here.  Reading skill is helpful for the text, and parental supervision is recommended for the in-game purchases.

Tags: Game Reviews