Bright Paw: Definitive Edition Reviews

Have really loved this game! It's just the right level of challenging and fun and the VO in particularly awesome. Great story and totally glad I played it all the way through <3

An absolutely STUNNING game!! Adorable visuals with fun game-play, an intriguing and well made story, good and often challenging puzzles, and a charming and exciting narrator all combine splendidly to make this beautiful and fantastic game an absolute must play for puzzle lovers and story lovers alike. I truly cannot recommend this game enough, 1000% worth every single penny and every single second of game-play. 11/10 all around

I was browsing the Steam store looking for my next game to play. Then there it was! A cat's head with an interesting blue tone to it. And me thinking cats are pretty cool bought it without hesitation. I actually didn't look too much into it, just a few screenshots and the words "murder, mystery, puzzles and cats". What followed was a fun little puzzle game with a "paw-some" story to back it up. [h1]Story[/h1] You play as Theo, a cute white cat, who is sleeping in the middle of the night dreaming. To then be suddenly awoken by a calamity in the house. Theo, being the curious cat he is, goes to investigate the noise only to find out that his owner has been murdered. Prompted by both the narrator and Theo's eagerness, the chase begins to track down the culprits but there is more to the plot than meets the eye. The plot is actually pretty interesting and I was not expecting to get this invested into the story. In my experience most of these types of games do not offer a coherent story. Usually they will just change up the visuals or areas to give the player a sense of movement or difference. Yet in Bright Paw each level transition makes sense and is justifiable in the world we are in, helping to piece together a story. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Theo is tasked with traversing through various levels in a turn-based style system. Each level has a set grid layout and the player is given cards to guide Theo through the puzzle to reach the exit. These cards can range from a simple wait, to various movement patterns to more special cards and hovering over each card will give a preview of how it will play out. It sounds simple but it progressively gets more difficult as new mechanics are introduced that Theo has to avoid or utilise to make it to the end which can involve gaps, electricity, rogue robots, fire and lasers. This led to me constantly having to consider each action, as I didn't want to see the little cat get hurt. But the developers do not punish your failures, they have implemented a rewind button to quickly correct any mistake. Overall, I think the developers have done a good job at the difficulty curve. Sure, the early levels might have been a bit too easy but some of the later levels had me scratching my head for a while trying to figure it out. And these were the most fun! I would have loved to have seen more of these difficult levels throughout. Perhaps they could do some further updates with more levels or a "hard mode". I'll quickly note that there are also a lot of collectibles spread throughout each level which are occasionally highlighted. Clicking on these will give further explanation on the surrounding environment and character backgrounds while also unlocking different skins for Theo. [h1]Visuals/Sound Design[/h1] The visuals are done pretty well, there is plenty of variety to each level and a surprisingly high level of detail in each. The option to change the camera view is a nice touch, it was great to get a better idea of the level. The music done by Will Bedford is nice and definitely fitting for the game, it certainly helped to reinforce that investigative and puzzle solving mood. But I think he did an even better job in those more intense moments. Narrator, Sam Hughes, did a great job as well and explains what is happening through each level which helps to engage the player in the story and raise awareness to certain hazards. And, the emotions delivered throughout his performance was top notch. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] In conclusion, the team at Radical Forge have produced an enjoyable puzzle game with an engaging story. It will last you about 4-5 hours depending on if you rush, and there is little replayability unless you want to get all the collectibles. But I think for the price it is definitely worth it. I would recommend this to anyone who is wanting a casual puzzle game to occupy themselves over a few afternoons. If you enjoyed my review and like to see more like this, you can follow me at my newly created curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/38724308/]Shifty's View[/url].

The art is cozy and attractive and the concept is interesting, but sadly it is too buggy to recommend. In the short time I played I encountered bugs requiring several game restarts involving: volume level, achievement proc, camera, win condition detection. If these bugs should be fixed I think the game would be fun.

This is where I wish there was an in-between rating on Steam. I'm basing this on playing through the base campaign, and the gameplay itself is fine. It's a fairly simply straightforward puzzle game with a couple actually difficult puzzles near the end. The graphics aren't high fidelity but they serve their purpose. Now, the problems. The first minor one is that the narrator gets a little obnoxious at times but that's largely preference. The real issues are the bugs. Another small issue is that for some reason the game remembers your card skins between sessions but not your character skin. Also, when I opened the game for the first time I got several in-game achievements that popped as well as a skin that unlocks from getting burned 10 times or something. The in-game pops happened every time I loaded the game, which was not a small number of times because... Interacting with certain collectibles will prevent you from finishing the level and make you unable to interact with the menu forcing you to alt+F4 and starting from your earlier checkpoint. After a certain point, I abandoned getting the collectibles just to finish the game. Though that didn't stop me from accidentally clicking collectibles while trying to rotate the map and sometimes having to quit. TL;DR The game is okay. Just don't get the collectibles.

If you like highly polished games with a mild strategy element, with pleasant difficulty, and already loved games like Hitman Go or Lara Croft Go, then this may well be the relaxing puzzler for you. Beautiful setting, interesting gameplay mechanics, many hidden secrets that expand on an unusual story, and fair achievements should entertain for many hours (6.5 h for 100% completion).

This game is unplayable. I would have refunded but it was cheap and my hope is that my contribution will contribute to a patch sooner, rather than later.

Completely broken on Steam Deck, unfortunately. The tutorial breaks as soon as the rewind function is introduced. ☹️

[h2]Features of the Definitve Edition[/h2] - [b]Controller not working anymore[/b] (other people reported Controller is working but the mapping is wrong) - [b]Bug: Camera Locks[/b] and you can't do anything except Quit the game - [b]Bug: Collectibles[/b] are either not unlocking or not showing (and causing a camera lock) - [b]Bugged Achievements:[/b] On startup various gameplay achievements pop up but don't actually unlock in steam? other people also report achievemtents not unlocking and achievements unlocking at wrong times - [b]Bye bye save game.[/b] Best feature of all! The game just randomly corrupts/deletes your savefile so you can enjoy the whole game from the start! How nice :) To be honest I think I would like the game if it was playable but the current state of the game is ridiculous. Apparently most problems came with the last update but I don't get why such trivial completely game breaking bugs are not addressed. The discussions are full of bugreports and problems, the devs stay silent and the last update was over a year ago.

The game is buggy, Regularly the camera cannot be rotated. I have to quit the game with Alt + F4 because the menu cannot be accessed. This game needs a bugfix from the developer.