Intense and Trippy, ‘Puss!’ Sees You Avoiding Stages [Giveaway]

Do you remember those web-page games that were called ‘Impossible Game’ or whatever, where you needed to move your mouse through levels, avoiding everything and staying on the path, to get to an end area? 

Puss! is much like a newer, freakier version of this type of game – but instead of your cursor, you are carrying the face of a cat (and if that sounds good to you, maybe you’d like to try to win a free copy of the game).

In each level, you need to move your cat head from the starting point to the colored end area without losing all of your lives. Unlike the previous impossible games that I have played, Puss! has brilliant and surreal graphics, both colorful and slightly creepy, as you play.

You will find levels where the paths move, bullets are shot at you, and buttons need to be pushed to make it to new areas in PUSS!. Occasionally, there are a few different checkpoints, but most of the time you will need to pass the level in a single go. As you play each level, your score will go down with the time you take. Once you make it to the end, your points will be granted to you, and if you have enough, you might gain an additional life.

You will need these lives. When you fall off the path, get struck by bullets, or get hit by something moving around, the game will start to display static, and you will only have moments to fix your positioning. If you stay in a bad area, or keep getting hit, you will die and need to restart at the beginning. 

As a cat, you do start with 9 lives, but the game doesn’t just have challenging levels. There are also world bosses looking to take you on. Unlike paths, you will need to avoid bullets and grab words in order to gain enough power to take them on. The game then switches to button mashing, giving you time to scratch your enemies with your claws, before your time runs out and you need to make it back to avoiding being hit. Before boss fights, you are given a bit of story which tells you why you are alone and in this strange world.

Dying, as you might have guessed, happens a lot in Puss!. When you lose all your lives, you will be brought back to the main menu and can play again. The levels you get to experience do change each time you playthrough, though,  so dying isn’t too big of a deal.

When it comes to aesthetics, Puss! looks quite wild, with 3D dolphins spinning around you, strange cat bodies bobbing around, and palm trees moving up and down. You might not notice all of these external graphics if you’re focused on the colorful level around you. For customizing your character, you do have a variety of cat faces to try out, from the classic face to a three-eyed, dripping slime cat you can move around.

Puss! is a very challenging game that takes you through some wacky worlds. If you’re up for the challenge, and have a much steadier hand then myself, you might even be able to make it through these colorful places, taking on more bosses and figuring out what is going on with its narrative.

Puss! is available for $9.99 on Steam, and there is also a free demo for you to take a look at. If you would like a chance at a free copy of the game, you can sign up for our Rafflecopter giveaway

About The Author

Jupiter Hadley

Jupiter is a prolific indie game journalist, writing for Metro UK, Big Boss Battle, AlphaBetaGamer, and many more, all with a focus on smaller indie gems. She covers thousands of game jams and indie games on her YouTube channel, letting every game have a moment in the spotlight. She runs indiegamejams.com, a calendar of all of the game jams going on in the world, judges many jams and events.

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