Midi the Cat Review
- Dakota Hernandez
- Mar 21, 2022
- 5 min read
Game Metadata
Learning Objectives
Midi the Cat teaches the player basic musical skills including keeping time, piano hand placement and use, and music theory principles. Music theory is the study of the practices and possibilities of music; the field takes an analytical approach to music and what makes something “sound good.” Music theory is an inherently auditory learning experience, so instruments are a common tool to supplement a student’s learning and to build associations between sequences and patterns of notes on a piece of sheet music with sounds. The most common instrument for developing music theory skills is the piano, and Midi the Cat supports using an actual MIDI keyboard if the player has one available. The skills learned playing Midi the Cat have great potential for vertical transfer to further music theory study: Principles like chords and progressions show up throughout music theory and are some of the most fundamental tools for music creation. There are no musical prerequisites beyond general exposure to music and few general prerequisites beyond owning a MIDI (or traditional computer) keyboard and knowledge of the English language.
Game Elements
Midi the Cat is a platformer where the player has to navigate their cat character Midi to the end of increasingly difficult levels. Midi walks, runs, jumps, and climbs through her environment while avoiding monsters and traps. Beyond the core objective of reaching the goal, there are hidden salmon collectibles and NPCs to talk to and learn more about Midi’s strange new world. Unlike most platformers, Midi is controlled by a rather unconventional control scheme: Midi moves according to musical inputs from the player. Midi’s full range of movements are as follows:
Walk: Play any single note. Successive inputs in time with the beat cause Midi to walk faster which can be combined with a jump to cross large gaps.
Jump: Play any two notes separated by one note in between.
Climb Up/Down: Play any increasing/decreasing sequence of adjacent notes (i.e. an ascending/descending scale).
Turn Around: Play any two notes separated by three notes in between.
Sneak: Play any increasing sequence of alternating white/black keys. (i.e. an ascending chromatic scale)
Midi’s movement options are displayed on the right corner of the screen. A music staff scrolls through the screen indicating the start of each beat and recording the player’s inputs.
The recommended set of keys is displayed in the upper-right corner of the game screen, but any will work. In addition to Midi’s many options for traversing the game’s levels, there’s a surprisingly deep dialogue system where the player has to play specific sequences of notes to communicate with NPCs. In fact, it appears that there’s an entire language developed and that the player could theoretically construct entire sentences out of music.
To respond to NPCs, the player constructs words out of note sequences.
Learning Mechanisms
Midi the Cat makes use of several learning principles to accomplish its goal of educating the player on rhythm, basic piano proficiency and music theory. As previously mentioned, music theory is primarily an audio-based discipline, and the game has several little details to present the game as both a visual and auditory experience. The game’s environment is filled to the brim with elements in time with the beat, such as background music, lights flickering, platforms moving, and enemies walking, to keep the player moving in sync with the speed of the music. This multimedia approach really elevates this game beyond more visual-based games that we’re used to playing on our computers.
Given that the music is constantly flowing, the player is given instant feedback on if their inputs were correct or not. The feature that best presents instant feedback is the walking system: Players move through the level the fastest when they input in time with the beat. However, if they mistime an input, midi slows back down to a crawl and they have to build back up to a faster speed. This feature is great for educating players on staying in time with the rhythm of the game.
I had previously progressed up to max speed but lost it by mistiming one of my inputs.
As the player plays through Midi the Cat, they learn new skills and abilities to help her move through the level. These increase in difficulty and precision as the game progresses, but the player is never required to use more than one or two skills in rapid succession. Learning new skills kept me engaged and curious to see what else Midi was capable of, and not having to perform overly complex combinations of movement options was nice for me as a novice in the music theory field.
Overall Critique
Overall, Midi the Cat is an incredible concept that I’d be really interested to see developed further and polished. As a game, I felt that the levels were a little oddly designed, as there wasn’t much direction on where to go and few challenges beyond jumping to the end. It would be nice to see some more time-sensitive obstacles to give things a sense of urgency while also forcing the player to not lose their focus and stay on the beat. The “keeping inputs in time with the beat” mechanic is really cool too, but it is currently only used for walking and could be extended to jumping with a double-jump mechanic or other movement options. The thing that most interested me was the music-based dialogue: I’d really love to see this explored further as I think it would be cool to communicate in music and have to learn a language based on common chords or progressions. Personally, I think the dialogue audio itself could be adjusted to be something more abstract besides meowing sound effects at different pitches; I thought it got a bit annoying to listen to after a bit.
As a tool for learning, the game taught me a lot about how to use a keyboard. I played a lot of violin growing up, but never learned how to play a keyboard nor did I receive much exposure to music theory. Hence, I think I was right in the target audience for this game. At first, I found myself following the recommended controls exactly; that is, using the same key over and over again to move and the same pair of keys to jump. However, I soon realized that I could use other keys to do the same thing, so I started experimenting with different combinations to try and make new sounds. I specifically remember playing the same section of one of the levels over and over again because I wanted to beat it with a sequence of inputs that actually sounded good. I’d certainly recommend this game to game designers for its innovative control scheme and gentle introduction to music theory to those interested in the field.
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