As the title suggest, Cat Café Manager is a management sim with lots of cute cats to adopt, feed, play with and rehome – all while serving customers in your café. It’s a relaxing, cosy game with a diverse range of characters (both human and feline!)
I’ll be honest, I played a demo of this game in early access and was disappointed. Too little cats, not enough content, grindy and just generally felt more of an amateur production. Thankfully, the ‘Naptime Update’ convinced me to give the game another go and I’m so glad I did! Most of my initial criticisms have been addressed. The controls are still a bit clunky but there’s far more content in this latest version. I also found decorating my café was a lot more fun now.
I most enjoyed playing ‘Kittens and Kaverns’ (the in game D&D campaign) as a ‘Nekomancer’ and listening to all the memories that characters had of the old lady I inherited my café from. These stories came from special tables released mid-game. They are a great idea and one I’d love to see expanded in future updates. It would be wonderful to see more of them in the late game stage and perhaps more outdoor options early on.
My biggest complaint is the skill tree could do with a tweak – I was struggling for books almost the entire game, with no idea what furniture option would provide them. This could easily be addressed with some description changes and balancing. It did affect my enjoyment of the game but overall it’s not a major game issue, just a frustration which seems unnecessary.
My other gripe is that the ‘delivery service’ which opens up late game doesn’t appear to work. I haven’t encountered any other bugs. It’s not too much trouble to buy my ingredients manually but I do feel that I wasted a lot of resources on an option that I get no benefit from – something to bear in mind if you are tempted to save for it.
The art style is nice but underwhelming. It doesn’t quite have the quirky cosy game vibe that I would prefer but it’s good enough. A more unique, hand-drawn experience could have taken this game from good to spectacular. I did enjoy how the different cats’ art matched their descriptions though!
The game length is fine for the price of the game. I wouldn’t say it was cheap for the content but definitely pitched appropriately. If anything, I would say there’s scope for some cheap DLC. I would not object to paying £1.99 for more decoration options and perhaps up to £3.99 for 2-3 hours of extra story content.
All in all, Cat Café Manager is a solid game with scope to be much, much more.
| Criteria | Scores | Our Score |
|---|---|---|
| Artistic Achievement | 1-5 | 3 |
| Gameplay | 1-5 | 4 |
| Value/Cost | 1-5 | 4 |
| Controls | 1-5 | 3 |
| Length | 1-5 | 3 |
