Review: Cats and Seek: Dino Park (Nintendo Switch)

Cats and Seek: Dino Park is a hidden object game developed by Noobzilla and published by Silesia Games. I don’t play hidden object games too often, but when I do, there’s usually a story that goes along with it. Each scene has specific items for you to find before moving on. This title is not like that at all. You’re presented with one image with 100 cats to corral, and it works.

There are five levels total, each with a different massive image you can zoom into and out from to get a better look. All you do is move the cursor around the screen and, when you find a cat, click it with A. You’ll then be rewarded with the cat’s name and a brief description about them. Is it needed? Not necessarily, but it’s adorable, so yes; it’s needed.

Each level has 100 cats and a handful of extras for you to find, such as bees or birds. This game doesn’t have any difficulty settings, but there are two ways to play. You can play each level casually, taking your time to mindlessly scroll through the image, clicking wherever you see a cat. Pressing Y gives you a hint, drawing a circle around an area where a cat is hiding. The hint system has a cooldown time, but it’s not long and hints are unlimited.

In addition, you can play each level with a stopwatch. It times how fast you can complete the level, but there is no hint system. The timer replaces the Y-button option on-screen. Of course, the more cats you find, the more difficult it gets to find the rest. So, if you play with the stopwatch, the cats themselves will give you hints once you have about ten cats left to find. If a cat is somewhere on screen, you’ll hear meows.

The music in Cats and Seek: Dino Park is delightful. There are three tracks you can choose from. However, once you choose one, you’re stuck listening to it on a loop until you complete the level.

I’m most impressed by the hand-drawn images. I’m floored that an artist created such intricate pieces and had to keep track of 100 cats to hide within them. You can also change the coloring of each puzzle to suit your eyes, but I left it as the default newspaper-esque coloring. 

Overall, Cats and Seek: Dino Park won’t take you long to get through. The longest I spent on a puzzle was about 14 minutes, and my quickest time on one puzzle was roughly nine minutes. Will I ever revisit this game? I’m not sure, since I rarely get a hankering to play hidden object games. I certainly don’t feel like I wasted my time on this title, though, and I know there are other games in a series that I may try out.