Quilts and Cats of Calico

Quilts and Cats of Calico is an indie puzzle/strategy game developed by Monster Couch and published by Monster Couch and Flatout Games. The game was released on March 5th, 2024 on PC and macOS and is supposed to be released on Nintendo Switch in 2023, but as of September 25, 2024, it is not currently available.

Quilts of Cats of Calico is an award-winning puzzle/strategy game where you assemble a quilt from fabric tiles. You have to arrange the tiles by color and pattern to earn points. You can also sew on buttons by placing three of the same colors in a row. You can also attract cats to your quilt by assembling patterns in a certain order that will attract a specific cat.

Quilts of Calico is based on the board game Calico from Flatout Games and AEG. The board game has the same basic premise of designing quilts to attract cats to curl up and nap on your quilts.

Quilts and Cats of Calico has three gameplay options, Offline, story mode, and online play. Online play has two options itself where you can play in real time 3-minute turns, or play in a 72-hour window. I don’t know too much about these options as I admittedly did not try them. I will explain further in my actual review of the game.

The system requirements aren’t intense for this game. It only requires a 2nd generation core i5-2430M and 4GB of RAM, and only a Nvidia GT540 and 2GB of Hard drive space. The GT540 and the Core i5 were both released in 2011. So, that 10-plus-year-old computer your grandma is still using will run this game just fine most likely. The only new requirement is as of 2024, steam will require at least Windows 10 due to the Steam Client not supporting older operating systems. The Mac specs OS only requires OSX 10.11 which is El Capitan and released in September of 2015.

I played this game for about an hour and this game to me comes across as really repetitive and that could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on what your gaming style is. The game does have a story mode to move you along a quilted “game” board to accomplish tasks while you prepare for a festival. I again did not get too involved in the story mode, while I do like a game with a great story, such as Heavy Rain or RoboCop: Rogue City, games such as these don’t entice me to follow the story.

The game's controls are just fine because you only need a functioning mouse. So that e-waste one that came with grandma’s computer will work just fine, while you follow the patterns and score enough points to pass each task and move to the next one.

The solo game, I believe is where this game kinda shines, even probably the online experience, now the reason I did not play the online version is because… honestly, I suck at these types of games and didn’t want to get my ass kicked by those that have been playing since March.

In the solo game, you play against an A.I. opponent and you select three pattern tiles out of four and those patterns are going to be the ones, you will try to accomplish to score as many points as you can to defeat your opponent.

I believe this game is great for a casual gamer who likes games such as Candy Crush, and any puzzle games located on your phone’s app store or play store. I think this game would honestly be a perfect game for a mobile device. This is also, why I was making grandma jokes. These jokes aren’t meant to bash the game, but to just hint that in my opinion, this game is right on par with casual games. Waiting in line play Quilts and Cats of Calico. In a waiting room for an appointment….. see where I am going. This game is perfect for those situations. I think the developer should honestly port this to Play and App Stores for mobile users. I think this game is perfect for the mobile market and casual gamers. Now, hardcore gamers may like this for something relaxing to play and of course, with cats walking across your quilt you can pet them and hear them purr, which is always relaxing.

Would I recommend this game? Yes, the base game is $19.99, and while it may be a little high for what you get, it was enjoyable enough to say it’s worth the cost, or just wait for a sale. This game does have DLC which is $9.99 and is the soundtrack of the game. It isn’t necessary unless you are a fan of game soundtracks.

I am going to be generous to this game and give it 4 out of 5 hearts since I think what the game is and presents itself as is perfect and the only thing, I would change again is the previously mentioned port to mobile devices for a lower price of course.