Nekograms (Nintendo Switch) Review

Cats and puzzles, it cannot get any better. There is a certain personality type that is all about cats and puzzles, and for these people, Nekograms delivers beautifully. The premise is simple. The player has to help all the cats go to sleep by ensuring that they all lie on a cushion. The problem is that cushions only move up or down, and cats only left or right. Additionally, other objects may be in the way and block what seems to be the easy solution. In other words, there are some true brain teasers lying in wait, like a cat trying to catch that laser dot!

The learning curve is good, with easy puzzles and explanations to ease the player into understanding the rules and mechanics. After a while, the puzzles increase in difficulty, so it stays challenging. The downside is that Nekograms really only delivers one type of puzzle. There may be minor cosmetic variations, such as different types of cats, cats wearing different accessories or different types of obstacles, but overall, there is not a lot of variety here.

However, this title is adorable. The music is relaxing and calming, but unfortunately there is no extended soundtrack with different choices to choose from. The cat sounds however are spot-on. Cat owners will feel right at home. For anyone that doesn't know what happens when you wake a sleeping cat (for example by prodding it): it makes a cute start-up sound, a little bit like "Mrrrrrrp!" It tells you that the cat is heavily offended but way too lazy to seek revenge right now, and exactly this sound can be heard in the game when a cat awakes due to the player moving a cushion away. Of course, there is also purring and proper meows, and it is all very cute and dinky.

There are 120 puzzles to play through in this title, which will be completed fast by seasoned puzzle-solvers, so luckily the Endless Mode is unlocked after. Endless Mode allows for playing random puzzles over and over, so it lasts somewhat longer than it would with only the 120 base puzzles.

Unfortunately, some minor glitches were encountered during this playthrough, which were mainly related to cats being moved onto what should have been obstacles. This issue persisted for one of the puzzles even when the puzzle was reset, however nothing ever got stuck in a way that would have needed a full reset, so playability was hardly affected. It merely caused some mild confusion.