Alien Cat 2 is coming to modern consoles next week

Ratalaika Games is releasing Alien Cat 2 - Retro Collection for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox consoles, and Nintendo Switch on June 19.

A strange release history

If the name sounds familiar, the game has had an unusual journey. It originally launched on Steam back in 2020 as a standard PC indie game by Repa Games. Later that year, PSCD Games secured the rights to port it to the Sega Genesis as a physical aftermarket cartridge. PSCD then followed that up with a Kickstarter campaign to bring the game to the NES and Super Nintendo.

Now, Ratalaika Games is publishing those retro console ports for modern hardware. It is a strange path for a game to take. Usually, a retro throwback gets an Xbox or Switch port first, and maybe a novelty Genesis cartridge years later. Alien Cat 2 went backward. It established itself in the physical homebrew scene before making the jump back to digital console storefronts.

Synchronized felines

The premise is straightforward. A cat crashes its red UFO on a desert planet filled with skeletal monsters and needs to scavenge parts to rebuild it.

You control the cat from a top-down perspective. You navigate grid-based mazes to collect bolts and fuel.

The main mechanical hook involves managing clones. The planet creates copies of your cat that move synchronously with your inputs. If you press up, every cat on the screen moves up. You have to navigate tight corridors, avoid ice hazards, and dodge ghost-like enemies without letting any of your feline duplicates walk into a spike trap.

If one clone hits a mine, you fail the stage.

It takes heavy inspiration from older puzzle games like Sokoban and Chip's Challenge. Every movement counts. You have to use the walls and dead ends to offset the clones from each other. This lets you position them safely before making a run past a hazard. The levels start simple but quickly introduce moving threats. You end up being chased by floating enemies through brown, rocky corridors. This forces you to think several steps ahead.

It is easy to accidentally walk a clone into a pit because you are distracted by an enemy chasing your main character.

Budget puzzle solving

The graphics are strictly 8-bit. They match the hardware the game was ported to over the last few years. The upbeat chiptune soundtrack fits the lighthearted sci-fi tone. The ultimate goal of the gameplay loop is simply fixing the ship and getting off the planet.

Ratalaika handles the publishing duties here. The game carries an ESRB Everyone 10+ rating for Fantasy Violence and Mild Blood. It falls into the usual budget tier you expect from the publisher. The retro homebrew scene produces a lot of great puzzle games that never leave their original 16-bit cartridges. If you want to try one without buying original hardware and setting up a CRT television, this release makes it easy to do just that.