Leonardo's Cat
© 2015 Storytoys
Did you know that Leonardo da Vinci loved cats? That's just one of the many actual facts you learn as you play through 60 well crafted logic puzzles that start easy, thanks to a tutorial, and get very hard. Each involves dragging and dropping one of nine Leonardo da Vinci-inspired devices into place on a path so that his cat can pick up a reward without getting bonked, dunked or fried. There's no explicitly graphic or worrisome content other than classic cartoon violence, and this cat has an unlimited number of lives. Commentary -- with a slight British accent -- is provided by Leonardo himself, depicted as a white-bearded old inventor with the voice of actor Patrick Stewart. In the story, Leonardo’s latest invention, the Automaton, has been stolen by Michelangelo. You send Scungilli, Leonardo’s cat, into an ancient city to find the parts. Each level contains an animated movie that illustrates some of the actual products made by Da Vinci. The game takes place in Amboise, an animated version of da Vinci's studio. The more levels you play, the more robot parts you collect that are used to reassemble da Vinci’s Automaton. The inventions include parachutes, spring ramps, cannons, catapults, and ornithopters (wings); and each must be adjusted to work. Testers wanted more control, so they could fine tune the different inventions. Success requires repeated testing and debugging, and the later levels can get tricky. For example, there may be different paths in the same maze, and the water or fire pits that take up many cat lives. The 60 levels provide lots of challenges. Testers wanted to be able to pinch and pull into Da Vinci's actual work (especially the Mona Lisa), and we noted that there is a "win or lose" element to the puzzles, when a "you lose!" banner appears if the cat dies. A simple "try again" would suffice. It would be nice to get some specific feedback from da Vinci when struggling. Other suggestions from the Mediatech testers: make it easier to reset a level and include a sandbox mode. None of these are deal breakers, but they are important to note. Da Vinci's voice is done by Patrick Stewart (Star Trek, X-Men), and the characters were created by Michael Frith (The Muppets, Fraggle Rock), with script writing and scientific writing by Bob Tedeschi (New York Times, Bobo Explores Light). The bottom line? This is a fun, challenging app with no gimmicks or in app purchases. And it even contains an underlying sniff of scientific authenticity that is rare these days.
$2.99, iPad
Teaches: logic, problem solving
CTR Rating: 94%