Stupid Kittens

When I realised what had happened at the end of this game, I burst out laughing in a way that I'm not sure I ever have with an IF game before. The ending - which I won't spoil, naturally - is a typical example of the kind of brilliant stupidity that made me enjoy this game so much. Stupid Kittens is clearly the work of a capable IF author - capable enough to understand how to bend the structure of a good game back on itself and create a feedback loop of intelligently conceived idiocy.

I'm sure that the poorly spelled opening text of this game has scared off a good few people, who assume that it's one of those self conscious parodies of bad games that blight IF Comp and manage, without fail, to never be the least bit entertaining. Stupid Kittens is more subtle than that, and more in-your-face as well. Simply put, this is a game where stupid things happen. Unexpected stupid things. The game carefully sets up traps for you to walk into, that if you're anything like me, will have you giggling with childish glee as soon as you realise just what (metaphorically speaking) you've stepped in. There are no real puzzles, just a bad acid trip of a game, where the rules change on a whim and the philosophical and moronic are tangled up in one great wet furball.

I guess, when it gets down to it, this is a game where you play a cat that, under instruction from Buddha, finds its soul up its backside. You know whether that's your kind of thing.