ONLY WAY IS DOWN
Available on Steam
Developed and Published by Jilted Generation Productions
We know that cats can be mischievous by nature as well as loving nothing more than a good nap. Developer Jilted Generation Productions has combined the two by basing a game around a cat that decides to take a nap on some construction material that has subsequently been lifted onto the top floor of a skyscaper that’s under construction. Whoops! Controlling the kitty, you must guide poor ol’ puss back down the building by navigating beams, ledges and platforms. Because you’re a cat, you’ve got 9 lives in case, you know, you fall off. And if you have stick drift like I have with one of my controllers, you may meet the kitty’s maker more often than you’d like in this challenging platformer.
The game offers plenty of customisation for your chosen cat character. You can choose the type of cat by coat colouring, as well as eye colour and its ‘chonkiness’ (do you want a slender or a fat cat?), and there’s even opportunities to dress your cat in accessories, such as hats, masks and glasses. However, when playing the game for the first time, you’ll find no accessories to choose from. That’s because you need to collect them in the game to unlock them for use later – a nice little mechanic that gives you something else to achieve rather than it being a race to the bottom of the under construction skyscraper. These accessories are also optional to collect, often being placed on a beam or the like that presents its own risks, leaving you with the decision of how much you want to add that accessory to your collection at the risk of possibly loosing a life. This is at least where the game left me, as every step I made was a threat on the life of my cat, with stick drift deciding that at any moment it would persuade my cat to veer off the edge without me having to lift a finger. So I highly suggest making sure you use a controller that doesn’t have this flaw otherwise it’ll ramp up the difficulty loads.
As you run, leap and walk across construction beams, boxes and ledges to descend the skyscraper, it’s easy to get over-confident when you’ve not met a precarious platform for a little while. When you do, it can quickly become a wake-up call for your cockiness. Some require turning corners on a six-pence which is made a little easier to play thanks to the ability to slow down the cat’s walk to make precise turns. This helps enormously but you still need your wits about you to ensure there’s no wrong or sudden movement that could spell disaster.
They say when cats fall, they land on all fours. Well, that’s not particularly the case in ONLY WAY IS DOWN. If you happen to mis-step, lose your balance and the cat goes over the edge of the platform, you can often wave by-bye to one of its lives unless the drop is off a block or something on the same platform as where it lands. As not to upset players, there’s no grisly death but the sight of the cat slapping against the surface isn’t exactly great to experience either. Even though there’s a lack of blood or anything of that sort, and it appears to ragdoll onto the surface, it’s still distressing to experience as an animal lover. On the Steam forums, the developer mentioned during development of perhaps fading out as an option in the settings. As a result of the feedback, if you look in the settings page on the menu, you can change the fall settings from ragdoll (default setting) to a dissolve-type fall in which the cat will transform and disperse into falling petals. This is a much better way of experiencing a detrimental fall.
As the objective of the game is to reach the ground, back to safety, it’s pretty straightforward which direction you need to go but on some levels there’s multiple rooms and spaces in which to navigate. If you require a helping hand so as not make any unnecessary journeys or movements, a handy hint button can be pressed that lights up the path to take so you don’t have to waste time going the wrong way.
ONLY WAY IS DOWN has plenty of replayability due to the nature of the game. It’s challenging to play so you’ll want to see how fast and how far you can make it down the levels without dying completely. If you find the game too stressful, there’s Casual and Easy modes which offer better checkpoints and life opportunities. Normal difficulty gives you nine lives and the ability to have six permanent checkpoints and be ranked in the leaderboard. Insane has nine lives and three permanent checkpoints, as well as be ranked, whilst the most difficult, No Chance, give you nine lives and the ability to be ranked but no checkpoints – so if you happen to lose one of your lives, you’ll start right back from the top of the skyscraper.
Controlling the agile cat character feels great. The way it walks, leaps and runs feels authentic and quite responsive from the user’s inputs, even if just holding the thumb sticks in the direction you want your pussycat to go. And for cuteness factor, you’ll be glad to know you can make your cat meow on command.
The piano music which accompanies the gameplay is quite relaxing as you strategies your cat’s navigation, with some incredible views of the active city skyline as you traverse the construction site. The only part I find discomforting is the chorus of ‘ahhh ah-ahhhh’ when kitty falls to its doom. For some reason, it makes me nauseous – perhaps because I’ve become to associate the sound with the cat falling due to failing so often. I’ve traumatised myself. Haha.
I tried playing ONLY WAY IS DOWN on the Steam Deck and, whilst it works, the resolution isn’t correct and therefore the display of the game is skew-whiff and stretched, with the cat looking like a pancake cheese string. There may be a way to alter the settings so you could get it to display correctly. I tried with the in-game settings and couldn’t seem to, but perhaps once the game has officially launched this will be remedied as, besides that, it seems to work fine.
If you love cats and like rage-quit style games that gives you a set number of lives to try and reach a seemingly unfathomable task, to reach the bottom, then you’ll love what ONLY WAY IS DOWN has to offer. I’m sure with enough hours practicing, memorising and learning the nuances of the platform’s jumps and leaps, descending to the ground won’t seem such an unlikely target. That is why the replayability factor works so well. You’ve come across the problem once, so you know how to tackle each section to try and get a bit further the next time. I can see this game being the target for many a speedrun to try and top the online leaderboard. With the added bonus of Steam achievements, as well as the in-game accessories you can collect and unlock, ONLY WAY IS DOWN has plenty to offer in its simple yet challenging gameplay. Felinomenal!
Be the first to comment