Critter Cafe embodies coziness. From its rescue cafe premise to its no-holds-barred approach to customization and decoration that encourages players to express themselves, the brief demo I watched and played pointed to a consistent, refined vision that I have a feeling will be a big hit for fans of monster collecting games who are looking for something cozy to sink their teeth into.
Blending monster collecting, management simulation, and puzzle-based dungeon crawling sounds a lot more overwhelming than it actually is in Critter Cafe. That’s not to say that this comfy game from Sumo Digital and Secret Mode is oversimplified, just that it’s chill and approachable. Like any sim worth its salt, customization is the name of the game here.
With in-depth customization options (that can be changed at any time) for my chibi avatar and full-on cafe customization, the world is your aesthetic oyster in Critter Cafe. I was blown away at how much I could do to precisely mold the cafe to my liking. From wallpaper and floorboards to furniture—even the materials it was made from—I felt a sense of control and freedom over the cafe in a way that can often elude some games in this genre.
To give you a proper sense of what I mean, let’s look at Animal Crossing: New Horizons, for example. It’s a stellar game to be sure, but one whose customization suite leaves a lot to be desired. Changing your island or house takes a lot of work. Beyond the steps to actually unlock the recipe for something, you’ll often need tons of resources to craft said piece, which can be gated based on the real-life passage of time. But even without the progressive aspect of unlocking new recipes, clothes, etc. the process of customizing a home gets really tedious really quickly.
Not so in Critter Cafe, where customization options are available to you from the get-go. This allows for other mechanics and parts of the game to shine while still letting you express yourself to the fullest without jumping through extra hoops. Redecorating isn’t just for fun, though. Instead, you’ll often need to change the cafe at a customer’s request for special events. Indeed, these events are one of the ways you can grow and improve your cafe.
Let’s say a customer wants to have a movie night. You can redecorate with movie theater-themed furniture to cater to your customer’s desires. They might also share other aesthetic preferences and even tell you what kind of critter they’d like to spend time with. If you hit a high enough mark for a customer, they might even tell you where to find a portal that will take you to a new critter to befriend.
These adorable little beasties are mostly amalgamations of real-life and mythical animals with some kind of endearing twist or change. My favorite looks like a kit-bash between a dinosaur and a duck. But making a new feathered friend isn’t as simple as walking through a portal. Instead, you’ll need to complete a small block-pushing puzzle to find your new buddy at the end of a cave.
Normal service is a little bit more complex than the special events, and will help you and your critter deepen your bond as your reputation grows. Growing your reputation is the other main way that you’ll progress in Critter Cafe, so it’s important to balance leveling up your reputation while also making sure to make new friends.
My one gripe with what I saw of Critter Cafe was how simple those puzzles seemed. Yes, this is a cozy game first and foremost, so they’re probably not going to be Portal-level brain busters, but they seemed potentially lacking in diversity. That said, the puzzles I saw weren’t bad. In fact, they seemed like the perfect level of challenge to give me something to do in between running a cafe and hosting special events, but these same puzzles didn’t seem to promise much in the way of verticality or evolution based on what I’ve played and seen in trailers and screenshots.
If in fact they don’t grow or change much, they could seriously undermine the wholesome creature-befriending scenes at the end of each puzzle. Part of what made this demo special was how exciting it was to meet a new critter. If that gets pulverized into something tedious or repetitive, that could very easily dampen Critter Cafe’s otherwise exuberant nature.
I’m really interested in seeing what kinds of whimsical combinations Sumo Digital has in store for the rest of Critter Cafe. I hope the next time I hear about it brings more stuff to do while befriending critters and tells me a little bit more about its story, which seemed pretty light in the demo. But even if there’s no overarching plot to speak of, I’m certain its deep customization suite and critter designs will almost definitely appease the most rabid cozy gamers looking for their next obsession.
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