Parents' Guide to Hello Cats

The description of this puzzle game app deceptively seems like a positive animal game, but the action is anything but kind to these digital felines. Players of Hello Cats are initially presented with info that suggests that they'll be rounding up cats for an animal shelter -- which would be great. Unfortunately, you often seem to actually be attacking -- not protecting -- the felines that you come across, and philanthropy doesn't get mentioned much, if at all, while playing.

The experience starts out fairly strong; players see detailed explanations of how to draw items and what they need to do to proceed. But as they advance levels, the challenges get harder, and while players can restart rounds to try again, their intent in each one -- and how to achieve it -- isn't always clear. Ads for other games pop up just often enough to be an annoying distraction, and the rating system that determines how many stars you receive after each round seems to be pretty random (or just imprecise). But the app's biggest issue is the behavior it encourages players to exhibit toward the cats they're allegedly trying to help. Instead of coaxing them to come to a safe location -- or just picking them up and carrying them there -- players often have to throw things at the cats to knock them down, and the animated cats do not look or sound pleased when that happens. Offering players other methods to move and help the cats would be a much better choice than encouraging what looks like violent behavior toward animals.