Cat Isle review for PC

The life of a cat is indeed cozy. Sleeping, eating, playing, riding hot air balloons, fishing and reading The Great Catsby…? Wait a second. Did we just step into a Studio Ghibli movie? Hmmm maybe.

Cat Isle is a charming cozy game of running businesses and decorating a floating station for cats to live and play in. Interestingly it’s also somewhere I’d like to vacation. (After reading this article check out Japan’s cat islands in a ‘quick’ google search.)

There isn’t much in the way of spoilers for this game but some cute surprises I’ll be careful not to ruin. In Cat Isle you serve as the island caretaker who runs the island. Each level has different offers for food, shops and entertainment. Likewise those things (and more) have goals for you to work on to move to the next level. You start with a small group of cats that live in a house on the island and work your way up from there. Hot air balloon station, ice cream parlor, boat builder, and an aquarium are only some of the buildings you’ll encounter. That’s just in the first few levels.

Oh, the overload of cuteness when the day breaks and the cats start wandering around the island! You can click on cats to pet them and make them happy or help them fish when you see the bobber turn white! (I only wish that the fish stayed on the screen longer for me to click on.) And if this isn’t exciting use the speed buttons on the bottom right side of the screen to move things along at your pace.

Each level has a Gachapon (Gacha for short) machine that vends capsules- just like in real life. However, unlike in real life you can’t fit a flagpole or a bistro table in a small plastic ball. Each twirl of the dial reveals new items to decorate your shops or homes with. You can accept the item or try again for the price of a few paw prints (the monetary system is in cat paw prints, adorable!) Maybe the second time around you’ll get more than just a shrubbery. (Monty Python reference for no particular reason)

Besides how cute it looks, there is a reason you decorate the buildings on the island to 100% comfort. The higher the percent the more you receive daily for rent or for each item sold in stores and restaurants. As I said earlier you can get decorations from a Gacha but you can also build small stalls where you can build items like flags or small boats to liven up and personalize your own island.

The fun supply-and-demand side of each business comes at the end of the day when you see if all you ordered sold or if you had to return any. (Thus eating into your perfectly prepared paw print profits.) If you watch carefully during the day there are signs of what the cats want more and less of. Because as we know, cats are finicky. Some food items give bonuses if you either sell all of one kind or all different kinds according to the shop bonus rules. Pay attention to what sells and play around with varieties of products. (They have bags in some of the shops, which IRL my cats love but I’m wondering if I missed seeing if they have boxes too. Because all the expensive cat toys in the world  don’t compare to a shoe box. If I fits, I sits)

For the most part that is all there is to this cute and simple game. I enjoyed the supply-and-demand business style and the decorations. The Gacha was a perfect addition to liven up how you get most decorations. When cats where fishing, I found that too many times the fish were gone in a flash even on the slowest mode. It’s the only thing close to feeling anxiety in the game for me.

Though it’s a cozy game I only got lukewarm cozy vibes from it. I have to say though there is a feeling of something lacking for me. Maybe some cut scenes of cats enjoying the island tourist traps would enhance it a bit. Especially since it feels so Ghilbli-esque. This isn’t quite the cat’s meow but it isn’t cheap liver pate either. I’d play this again. Especially if it was in a hand-held version like the Switch but until then it’s laptop for me as long as there isn’t a cat already on my lap.

Note: Domke Games provided us with a Cat Isle code for review purposes.