Naughty Kitties review: adorable destruction

I’ve never been a big fan of cats, but if you find the cutest ones, put them on top of a rocket ship, and place a bazooka in their hands, then I’m on board. Fortunately that’s just what Shanghai based Coconut Island’s newest tower defense game, Naughty Kitties did, and the result was both adorable and fun.

There isn’t much of a story to go along with Naughty Kitties. All that is explained is that your world is under attack and you need to place your kitties strategically on a rocket ship to protect it.

There are a total of 12 cats in the game that all have unique abilities, but you start out with the three main cats. Michale is an experienced shooter and wields a rapid firing gun that shoots eggs. Chii is good at playing tricks and uses a missile launcher that shoots out explosive fish. And there is Chou-Chou, who thinks he is a cat but is actually an alpaca that can repair the ship with his wrench.

All the cats have abilities that you will want to use during your run, but unfortunately these cats get tired after a certain amount of work. Once they are tired they simply float away on balloons, leaving their post unmanned. It is up to you to select a replacement from one of the three options below the ship. If your ship has taken damage, grab Chou-Chou the repairman and let him do his thing. You need more firepower, place Chii and let him blast the enemies away with his fish missiles.

The problem is that the available kitties are selected completely at random. So if you need to do repairs and you don’t have Chou-Chou as one of your three replacement options, you might be in trouble.

You ride your ship until it is inevitably shot down and your score is tallied. A fairly simple concept, but the more points you collect the more power ups you can use to build a stronger ship and even collect new kitties to join your platoon. This makes for a very addictive system that you won’t be able to put down. That is, until you can’t play anymore.

When it comes to monetization schemes, Naughty Kitties suffers from a double whammy of lame methods. The first is an onslaught of ads. They show up nearly every life and are quite disruptive. Fortunately they are easy enough to close, but still frustrating.

The second is a typical stamina system that restricts your play. When enough time has passed, your stamina will replenish. The game then has your iPad make a loud “Meow” sound even if the game is off. This is honestly my biggest beef with the game. The meow is so life like that I was convinced there was a cat in my apartment the first time I heard it. I could definitely do without that sound effect.