CLAWPUNK, developed by Kittens in Timespace and published by Megabit Publishing, is all about cats. Now, if you haven’t guessed by my gamer tag, “White Dire Tiger”, I’ve got a soft spot for cats. In fact, I love all animals, but if given the choice of a pet, cats are my go-to.

CLAWPUNK is a story about a dictator cat named F who has taken over the city. You control a group of resistance fighter cats who have fled the city to an abandoned airfield. From this staging ground, you return to various districts to gather parts for a helicopter so you can assault Ruff Tower, where F resides.

That’s it for the story, and it doesn’t do much else besides give meaning to your actions, which is fine, as CLAWPUNK is more about explosive carnage than a deep, intriguing story.

CLAWPUNK embraces its pixelated graphics, scoring and ranking system, difficulty, and platforming gameplay, all inspired by 80s video games. It’s a game of repetition and patience, so if you are unwilling to repeat levels to learn enemy attacks, environmental hazards, and boss strategies, then CLAWPUNK, unfortunately, is not for you.

There are five stages, each containing eight levels, with a boss fight on the final level. Out of the 5 stages, you can tackle 4 of them in any order you want. Pick from Junkyard, Woodlands, Construction, or Sewers, before gaining access to Ruff Tower after completing the previous four.

CLAWPUNK is a two-dimensional platformer where you start at the top of the screen and make your way to the bottom, where the exit to the next level is. As you progress, you will find two coin types to collect: purple and gold.

Gold coins are used within the levels to purchase guns, health, or Rage, while purple coins are used at the Airfield. As the game’s hub, you can unlock new cats, grenade capacity, card slots, and cards. All these elements add to the rougelite nature CLAWPUNK embraces, giving you greater flexibility in levels.

The cards are the most important part, as you can equip up to three cards, each giving passive bonuses like an additional jump, larger explosions, more resource drops, and replenishing ammunition. There are a lot of cards and a lot of variations that can be bought in the hub, by completing tasks, or found in chests, and you can use these to customise your play style with each cat and complement their skills.

There are nine cats, each with a unique attack. Dash, for example, is fast and comes with a sword, while Banshee is slower but can fling her scythe. The cats all come with nine lives and can pick up and use guns and throw grenades, so they are not bound to close-quarter combat.

Rage can also be gathered in levels, and, when full, can be activated to make the cat invulnerable and enhance their attacks for a short period. Using the cats mentioned above, Dash can streak across the screen, and Banshee’s scythe moves around, targeting enemies not only on the X and Y axis.

CLAWPUNK wants you to be aggressive and destructive. Levels are filled with enemies and hazards fitting to the stage you are on, and almost everything can be destroyed. As exciting as this sounds, I found the gameplay very unengaging.

With its pixilated graphics, it gets a splash of neon colours, and when things explode, the vibrancy increases, all adding to the spectacle. It is exciting to watch when chained explosions go off, laying waste to enemies and terrain alike.

The sound effects are those of the classic arcade era, but the music is where the audio shines. CLAWPUNK rocks out with its punk-metal and hard synth, and it collaborates so well with the game’s theme that I was more likely to notice when it wasn’t playing during the longer-than-required transition screens.

Unfortunately, CLAWPUNK is not for everyone, but if you enjoy hard 80s-style gameplay, you won’t be disappointed. As uncompelling as the gameplay is, CLAWPUNK delivers a graphical explosion with neon flair and great music. With a great variety of cards, enhancing a cat makes customisation and experimentation fun.

Written by: Ashley Barnett-Cosgrove