Xitilion has been on a mission releasing tons of one button score attack games and whilst most of them are mildly entertaining for a few minutes, a couple of them stand out as being worthy of your time. I feel like the older generation of gamers will appreciate what Xitilion does because often these games are inspired by 80s arcade classics and Cate P is no exception.
Cate P is Centipede and Snake combined. You control a gun turret that constantly moves forward and each time you press a button it turns 90 degrees to the right and fires a shot. Onto the screen crawl various caterpillars that have linked parts and if they touch you, or you touch the outside border, its game over. You don’t gain points by staying alive, you gain them by shooting the caterpillar parts and this is where the game gets interesting. If you line up a shot that can hit consecutive parts, each part increases in score so a second part scores 2 points, a third gets 3 points and so on. Since caterpillars can be quite long, scoring 10 or more points for a well timed shot can really boost your score. However, doing so will also mean you’ve filled up the screen and boxed yourself in, thus being extremely dangerous and tricky to pull off.
Runs can be over in a few seconds or last a few minutes and a local leaderboard keeps track of your top scores. This is perfect for a retro pass and play high score challenge but I do wish there was a mode where each run wasn’t randomised and was seeded/structured instead. Then online leaderboards would have made this an absolute must have for the price point.
There is nothing wrong with Cate P, its just limited in scope and has a limited price tag to match. I bought this for 23p on sale and absolutely got my moneys worth. Older gamers or fans of penny arcade classics will enjoy the fact this is a highly skill dependant game over just lucky timing, which is a trait other Xitilion games carry. This is a real step in the right direction for the developers and I’d welcome more of the same.
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