Game Review – Cookie Cats Blast (Mobile – Free to Play)

Cookie Cats Blast is a simple and addictive puzzle game where you tap cookies of the same colour to collect them. A little similar to the “match three” puzzle games we are all so familiar with. Cookie Cats Blast is brought to us by Tactile Games ApS.

Tactile Games are the developer who brought us other games in the Cookie Cats series like Cookie Cats Pop and Cookie Cats as well as Disco Ducks and Skyline Skaters, to name a few.

This review is specifically related to version 1.0.1

“There’s a new face in the neighbourhood. Belle, Ziggy, Smokey and Rita have to protect their cookies from the cookie thief. New adventures await to be uncovered! Be ready to blast away obstacles, gather cookies and save kittens in this paw-some FREE puzzle game”.

While the introduction from the developer doesn’t actually tell you anything at all about the game, it does provide us with a terrible pun so credit for that. What Cookie Cats Blast is, is a bright, cartoony and colourful puzzle game where you have to tap on the screen to remove same coloured squares (cookies) that are touching. When you do, the remaining squares fall down and you go again. Each level has a target to hit of, for example, match 50 cookies in a limited amount of moves to complete it.

Basic, yes, but fun and addictive? Absolutely. There is nothing wrong with creating a simple game with the same basic principles as so many others as long as you make it well and Tactile Games have done that. After a brief intro cartoon video explaining the poor cats issues with theft of their cookies, you are presented with a busy but cute looking map. The map has a numbered path down the middle with each step representing a level, and a step closer to catching the thief.

As you would expect, the levels get progressively harder as you proceed. Starting off you simply have to collect a small amount of a certain coloured cookie on a perfectly square grid with no restrictions. Pretty quickly though you will have multiple cookie types, required, obstacles within the grid and barriers around the cookies making them require multiple matches before breaking free. Within the grid if you manage to form a large area of the same colour, you get special squares from which help you like explosions, line clears and the like. Manage to get a few specials next to each other and you can combine them and devastate the grid.

To help you on your way as the game’s difficulty increases you can choose to start the level with power ups/boosters. Things like an exploding square that takes out the squares around it. A booster that clears either a horizontal or vertical line or one that clears all squares of a certain colour. You unlock these by playing special events that appear on the games level path. Occasionally you will get things appear where you have to complete a certain amount of levels in a time period to get a prize box or special levels that you have to complete in a row with failure taking you back to the beginning of the section.

Little touches like this give the game longevity beyond just normal play. The thing that holds you up in games like this is the life system it employs. You get 4 lives that regenerate over time. Fail four times on a level and you have to wait 20 minutes or so for 1 to regenerate. Annoying but not the longest time in the world. Other ways to continue playing come in the form of coins and this is where the real money comes in.

Coins are hard to come by. You get them for earning in game achievements but only a small amount. You can also choose to watch a video ad for 1 free coin. I have unlocked about 10 achievements, spent no coins but only have 44 coins so far. That matters because the coin spend really comes at the end of a failed level. You get the choice to continue playing with 5 extra moves for a whopping 70 coins. How am I ever going to get 70 coins you say?

Well, let me tell you. You can buy them and they are not cheap. 140 coins for £1.99 sounds good but when you consider that will basically give you 10 moves, 5 on two different levels, that doesn’t last long. Still, you could always buy 9500 of them for £99.99. In terms of ads, there are a few pop up ones that allow you to close them immediately but these are not very common which is great.

There are also a load of added features like sharing lives between friends, daily quests and social media sharing, if that is your thing. The only real negative I have with this game is the coin thing but you really don’t need to pay any money anyway. Just fail the level, wait twenty minutes for a life to regenerate and have another crack at it.

Cookie Cats Blast is fun, colourful, bright and cheery. There is an unbelievable amount of content within the game and loads of added extras like achievements and tournaments to extend the games longevity. A few ads and crazy coin prices take nothing away from the game at all. Yes, it is very simple to play, but it is addictive and importantly, it is fun and deserves a bit of your attention.

Cookie Cats Blast is available now on both Android and Apple devices. Find out more about Cookie Cats Blast at the games Facebook page, here.

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