App Review: Avatar Maker: Cats

Today we review an app that we found to be a lot of fun, even though it is not a game. It is called Avatar Maker: Cats, and it lets you create a cat avatar that is as tame or as wild as you want it to be.

How it works

The blank cat you start with
in Avatar Maker: Cats.

You start with a blank cat and then select a background—we counted 26 different backgrounds to choose from, including domestic scenes, outdoor scenes, and fantasy scenes. You can come back later and change the background if needed. Then you start building your cat, choosing everything from coat color and pattern to the style and color of ears and eyes, ruff, tail, paws, and mouth. If you’re making a flying tiger or an angel kitty, you can add wings. And your cat can wear jewelry and hats and can even sport tattoos or, for those warrior cat types, slashes and scars. Your completed cat can easily be saved to your device as an image. We’ve made and saved several avatars and haven’t found an actual use for them yet, but who cares? The fun is in creating them.

A couple drawbacks

Our attempt at a realistic domestic cat. This fellow
has a question about the food he has been served.

While we have enjoyed Avatar Maker: Cats a lot, there are a couple drawbacks. First, since there is only one blank cat to start with, and the body style just feels like that of a large wild cat, we found it hard to make a cute kitty. Of course, we enjoy the big cats too, but sometimes you just want a cute kitty, you know? (Note: We have just noticed that there is an Avatar Maker: Cats 2, which looks like it offers a smaller, cuter cat body. We’ll be checking that out soon!) The second drawback is with the ads. We don’t mind having ads in apps, but the ads at the bottom of the screen in this app always obscure something. In landscape mode (the mode that’s best for viewing the different options for designing your cat), the ads cover the cat’s paws. In portrait view, the ads take up space that could be used to display more of the design options; there is just a very small space to see the styles of eyes, ears, and so on, which we think makes it harder than it needs to be to pick the perfect one for your cat. (Note: we use the app on an iPad; it might look different on another device.)

In general, we found that when we had trouble seeing or using anything in this app, rotating the screen helped. For example, the color picker is much easier to use in portrait view.

You can make your cat as crazy as you want.
Coming up with out-of-this-world creatures is
a lot of fun!

Our verdict

Avatar Maker: Cats is a fun app. We enjoyed making crazy-looking cats of a sort that do not exist in nature and trying to make more realistic-looking felines you might find in your living room. With all the choices, there are nearly endless possibilities for making all kinds of cat characters. We did wish for some options in body style, and we found that neither landscape nor portrait view is "purrfect" for seeing and using all the options. Still, we have had a lot of fun creating all sorts of cats.

The app is free and is available for Android and iOS devices. We played on an iPad.

Recommended!

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good app; two paws is for a great app. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!