A relaxing game to exercise the brain
Before going any further, I received this game for free and feel guilty for taking way too long to review it, so some positive bias is to be expected.
Intro
It’s not a secret that I like cute things. Also not a secret that I like cats. While puzzles like Sudoku are not my preference, in most days programming is already enough exercise for my brain, so sometimes it can be a nice change of pace to clear my mind (specially after the infuriating Discord situation). Since I’ve been wanting to write about games for a while, this might be a good start for a series of game reviews.
Steam Curator … my bad
Months ago I started a Steam Curator to list cozy cat-finding games, Joy of Finding Cats, with room for some exceptions that are not focused on finding hidden felines but still involve cats in some way. For quite sometime the list was only about games I already played a quite a while before putting them there. To me it is more than a list of recommendations, is also a side project to remember special games that put a smile on my face.
After some months, I received an offer to get a game for free to review, but I rejected the offer for being too overrun with work and personal life. More time had passed and I thought that had finally sorted things out, so it was time to return to the side projects, so I accepted the second game offered via the Steam Curator and … before remembering to review the game: I moved home, did quit my previous career, started making my own first game and spent the last of my reserves on medical stuff. It still my fault taking so long to review CozySudoku, all this explanation is only to show why even feeling guilty I took that much time.
Having all of that said, let’s begin.
Review
The cats
The game is totally centered in the Sudoku puzzles, with the cats being more of a cute mascot on the background. Not that different from real cats in that sense, specially the older ones. So this game is obviously an exception on my list.
One positive on this part is having a selection of skins for the background cat, every single one being very cute:
Other lovely detail is that the cat meows when clicked!
The Sudoku
First of all: I’m not good at Sudoku, a medium difficulty (on the in-game scaling) can take me more than 20 minutes to solve. That said, the controls of CozySudoku helped me a lot with the challenge.
Having a highlight on rows and columns, also at a selected number, makes me never get lost. The notes option might be useful for more dedicated players, to me it only made sense after finishing three games.
One thing that confused me at first, but was a skill issue from my part, was stamping a number on a cell. You need to first click the cell then select the number, trying to go for a number first will change the last selected cell. A few tries is enough to get used to it.
It's great having the gameplay being very configurable, allowing you to disable things that make the game too easy for you.
The UI
Did you notice the little variation between has a each print? That’s because the game, as far as I can tell just by playing, only has one screen with everything – not counting the New Game dialog.
At the same time that it makes very quick to adjust whatever setting you want, it might be a little overwhelming for players that can be easy distracted. With the amount of icons on the screen at all times, every single one bringing a popup menu, those options would be better served being inside a separate settings screen (or dialog) – entered by clicking the gear button.
It might be debatable, but if I was making a game similar to this, there would be two more things changed:
- Audio controls would be volume sliders instead of checkboxes
- The music player might have a separate screen/dialog, accessed by a music icon
Those suggested changes would clean up the UI, making it easier to port this game to mobile – where it would fit better than on PC, for it’s simple base controls. The shortcuts would not work on phones/tablets, but that would not be a big problem on those devices. Personally I don’t like to have a clock in-game, hope this can become optional as a setting in the future.
A final detail, this one assumedly a nitpick, is that the mix of perfectly smooth elements (icons at the top, the cat and it’ background leaves, the player, the clock, the numbers) with rougher elements (the Sudoku board, the numbers and actions buttons) is a little strange and might be a little uncomfortable. I’d recommend everything to be either smooth or rougher, a single style.
Conclusion
Since this is a game that I got for free, and played in a moment where I really needed something to relax a top of that, my review can be only purely informative. If you like the game go for it, if it’s not your cup of tea that’s OK, but my biases are too big to feel comfortable giving a veredict.
In my opinion this is kinda of a mix between “girly game” and pure puzzle, that would probably make more success on the mobile market. This should not need to be said, but just to make sure: by calling it “girly” I mean no demerit or saying no guy in the planet will be interested in this game, just pointing it probably appeals more to women.
So, here goes the link to the game:
And a final suggestion to the developer: try also having the game on GOG, it’s a nice store.
I do not know yet what will be my next reviews, maybe extended versions of reviews I already did on the Steam Curator or some more personal ones, but one thing is certain: writing is a passion I missed a lot, so be certain there will be more.
Update 2026: I still want to do more reviews.