Building comparison
head to head
A Castle Full of CatsvsFirewatch
Neither is meaningfully harder - they pose close to the same test. The widest gap is variance, and it is a single point.
A Castle Full of Cats
Optimization · Light / Casual
A hidden-object hunt rewarding patient visual scanning of dense scenes.
Firewatch
Optimization · Light / Casual
A first-person mystery about a fire lookout in a Wyoming forest.
A Castle Full of Cats leans Optimization (Light / Casual); Firewatch leans Optimization (Light / Casual).
A Castle Full of CatsFirewatch
Axis by axis
Execution1 vs 1
Same score on execution - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
A Castle Full of Cats
Pointing and clicking at cats, nothing more
Firewatch
Walking and radio dialogue only.
Reads0 vs 0
Same score on reads - which means the number cannot separate them. The difference is in what each one asks of you.
A Castle Full of Cats
No opponent anywhere in the castle
Firewatch
No adaptive opposition.
Variance2 vs 1
A Castle Full of Cats leans a little harder on variance, though the gap is small.
A Castle Full of Cats
Hidden cats are unknown positions until spotted
Firewatch
Minor environmental discoveries.
Optimization3 vs 2
A Castle Full of Cats leans a little harder on optimization, though the gap is small.
A Castle Full of Cats
Methodical scene-sweeping solves it completely
Firewatch
Few systems to optimize.
A matching score does not mean a matching test. Two games can both sit at 10 on execution and demand completely different things of you - which is why the reasoning above matters more than the number beside it.