BYTE CATS

BYTE CATS
N/A
Metacritic
93
Steam
63
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Release date
19 October 2022
Steam reviews score
Total
93 (15 votes)

Delve into a story-driven adventure and channel your inner kitten in this challenging old-school platformer. Perform wall-jumps, evade deadly obstacles, hunt mice and use powerful abilities to destroy everyone who stands in your way!

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BYTE CATS system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS:  64-bit Windows 7
  • Processor: Intel Core i5 @ 3.3 GHz or better, or AMD Ryzen 3 @ 3.1 GHz or better
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Graphics: NVIDIA GTX 1060 6Gb VideoRAM or ATI Equivalent
  • Storage: 5 GB available space
  • Sound Card: DirectX Supported
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NEX
NEX

A pretty promising 2D platformer that's a very good introductory difficulty level for those wanting to get into the genre and just enjoy something simple. A good amount of mechanics, enemies, obstacles with level design that is either short enough so nothing feels grueling, or that appropriate checkpoints are spread out and placed.

I appreciate mostly the amount of ideas the game has. From small things like open areas having arrows to point you towards the exit, a death counter at the end of levels, or collectibles that are out of the way and hidden enough that some puzzle platforming is needed.

Some tweaks for movement could be made regarding wall jumping, but the developers might have been aiming for the simplicity. That along with the ease of controls, many visual cues, and nice art style make the game very accessible to all. It also runs well on both the Steam Deck and computers (game-speed FPS), so it'll be fine to game on the go.

There's no achievements now, but for what the game has designed now, it has a lot of potential for ideas. I'm looking forward to when they do add achievements.

TELEFONMAST!!!
TELEFONMAST!!!

TL:DR: If you like platformers and are into metal-y/rocky music, buy this game.

BYTE CATS is a 2d platformer in a pixelated artstyle. It offers a truly challenging experience – for someone like me with little platformer-experience - by gradually increasing difficulty. I just started with Chapter 2 and the difficulty really took off. BYTE CATS offers 5 chapters. It took me around 2 hours to reach Chapter 2. Provided the following chapters take just as long, we’re looking at a game which is around 10 hours long – perhaps longer, since difficulty increases.

What made BYTE CATS special to me was the outstanding music. Really, I can’t stress this enough. The music is superb! It has a metal-y rocky vibe to it. It works with repetition which made them stuck in my head and it just sounds “cool” and “speedy”. Some levels offer classics from the classic-genre which gave me the impression of depth despite the fact I haven’t seen much of the story yet.

The story evolves around 3 cats who died. However, their souls were reincarnated as far as I understood it. Before each level you can choose which cat you want to play. Why that matters? Each cat has a special ability that can help you beat the level. There even is a little progression system integrated to upgrade your cat.

Gameplay is smooth and Performance was great. I did not encounter any bugs so far either, game feels quite polished. The game would profit from some variety in sound effects. For now, every sound emitting entity has only one sound file, which can sound a bit same-y. Yet it’s fun to hear the stereotypical punch sound when you hop onto an enemy. Every time you die, you get a slap. Okay okay sorry game, I’m not that good, okay?

Like every game, BYTE CATS has some frustrating moments which to be fair might just be due to my personal preference. Especially in Chapter 2 now there are quite a lot of hard passages within the level. Checkpoints aren’t that frequent though which results in having to play the same passage repeatedly till you reach the initial point where you’re failing. I would’ve enjoyed some more checkpoints. Furthermore, it takes some practice to get used to the walljump. First, I felt the timeframe was too short to hit the button, but it appears that I’ve just pressed too fast. Feels a bit off but that might just be me.

I’ve read that 10 bucks were too much to demand. I’m torn with this, because the music is clearly well produced and must’ve taken a lot of effort. Also, it seems that the game is longer than you’d imagine. I think within the 10-euro price tag it would be awesome for the developers to provide the soundtrack of this game. I’ve looked on YouTube, but I couldn’t find it unfortunately. Pretty please, devs? I’d like to listen to it outside of the game. :)

To summarize: If you’re a fan of platforming then this game is a no-brainer. I mean I’m not into platformers and even I enjoyed it. The music is just so good, I know I’ve said so before, but I was so surprised for an Indie-game to have such an amazing soundtrack. The game is cute and feels light-hearted. I’ve experienced thinking “Okay, just beat the level and then quit”. And when I finally beat it, I didn’t quit. I thought “Okay, I’m just gonna have a look what the next provides” followed by a “Okay 5 more deaths and I quit”

I didn’t. I think that’s quite telling.

Kyord
Kyord

This game is very challenging, but when you learn how to use the cat's abilities it gets a lot easier. Some cats get an ability advantage on certain levels, so the level design is very well-made.

✅ You can tell right away the game was created with care and dedication
✅ You have many language options.
✅ The history is funny.
✅ The level design is great with cool mechanics.
✅ The music is AMAZING.
✅ You can choose two cats and unlock a witcher black cat, and all they have different unique abilities.
✅ I didn’t find any bugs.

⛔ This game has potential but needs some polishing.

I invite you to be by my side and support our Indie dev's projects because we can feel a soul in each of these games.

JackVonThor
JackVonThor

Byte Cats is a must-have for every player, especially those who used to enjoy video games back in the 90s. You just can’t go wrong with cute cats rocking to heavy metal tunes. This retro-styled platform game is fun to play, and its gameplay reminds of the most memorable titles like Super Mario. Would recommend it 100%!!! Definitely worth buying and playing!

VH
VH

I really want to like this game. The story is fun enough, the challenges looks fun, but the game is totally ruined by how poorly optimized it is. No joke, this is a simple 2D game, with poor animations, no paralax scroll, this could easily run on a NES or a Sega Genesis. But on a computer that can run Cyberpunk on high settings, Plague Requiem on Ultra, this game is always between 30 and 45 FPS. Hell, this game runs terrible also in the Nintendo Switch. And again, it's the most simple 2D game possible.

When you launch the game it takes more than 30 seconds for a window to appear, then another 2 minutes of loadings (yes, loadings, on a nvme samsung evo) you get to menus that are also slow to navigate.

Again: the premisse is promising, the few levels I managed to play have cool challenges, but until the devs fix all the issues in this thing, I cannot recommend.

pugli
pugli

Beautiful game for fans of pixelated graphics will surely be a game to platinum. Funny the story and the characters as well as the environments of the various levels. The difficulty increases (as it should be) progressively. For example I was stuck at level 9 for a while! Nice sound. It reminds me a lot of my childhood with donkey kong and mario. Bosses are not impossible even if they are difficult. I advise!

caag =DD
caag =DD

The game perfectly mixes the pixelated graphics with a awesome gameplay mechanic, The game is designed so well that you can actually enjoy the various levels and environments even though the difficulty increases progressively, and you could find yourself stuck in some level but still enjoying the time you're spending. It reminds mario with the Jump'n Run gamestyle but the game adds a great taste and unique experience to the adventure. Easy to say, it has really great and funny mechanics and great storytelling mixed to the gameplay with abilities.

The content is pretty much varying but gotta give the sound VFX a bunch of points, it is made in a professional way and definitely fits the vibe within the game.

Level design is perfect
Sound VFX is perfect
Gameplay is perfect
I'm a dog person but really loved spending my hours. Though, you can face several problems within the game some small bugs that doesn't really effect your gameplay, I'm pretty sure the developers will be solving those as they seem to be caring about the people and give them a real entertainment. And what we gotta do is only support them.

I wish nothing but the best to them and recommend the game to those who wants to try a 2D Platformer with unique theme.

Mike
Mike

I had some fun with Byte Cats. It's got a fun story and vibe, and it is clearly inspired by some of the greatest platformers ever made, namely Donkey Kong Country and Super Meat By. The hellish landscapes, the cannon jumping, the bouncy tires, it’s all there. The platforming is pretty straightforward at first, but the difficulty quickly ramps up. I was cursing at my screen by the midway point of the first region.

However, it does have a few problems. For as often as steep as the difficulty ramps and as often as you’ll be dying, there is a pretty annoying pause before you are able to control your character again. There’s the loading screen of course (though some games of this style have found a way to get around this, like Celeste), but there’s an extra what feels like a two-second pause when you revive at the checkpoint. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’re respawning 10-20 times in the same section, it begins to add up.

The characters also don’t have any inertia, so it stops completely when you take your finger off the button, even in the air. This made the wall-jumping portions strange to navigate at first until I got used to that feature.

Overall though, Byte Cats is quite fun. If you’re looking for a tough platformer and have more than a little bit of patience, I would recommend it.