Purrgatory - A Review

Purrfect for the purrson seeking a wholesome time! 🐾

It's a charming little point-and-click adventure indie game, with adorable characters. Every now and then, the game chooses to humor with little puns that gradually grow on you.

In a nutshell, this game brightens the day of my inner granny - how you interpret this is entirely up to you!

purrgatory is a game that does exactly what it says on the tin. it is a wholesome vibes head empty game, and it brands itself as such. if you seek out slice of life wholesome vibes head empty games it's probably good!

the furry community is fractal, and i think a lot of times this sort of cutesy ">:3" wholesome vibes head empty epic pun "you like kissing boys dont you" aesthetic gets conflated with the whole of it. full power to you if you prefer this aesthetic, but my personal favorite furry works are almost always paradoxical in nature, at the same time cutesy, unassuming, and bleak and depressing (read echo!). i feel that the tension and contrast betweens these attributes ends up heightening the effects of both. but unfortunately the second half of these attributes are often hidden or obfuscated so as to increase the level of "shock value" at the heel-turn--so I end up more often than I would like tackling these wholesome vibes games and most of the time feeling a tad let down--through no fault of the games themselves.

in a world without undertale or chicory or mother 3 or one of many other games which use the contrast of cutesy smoothed presentation to heighten the contrast between heavier themes, i likely would have never crossed paths with purrgatory, but those exist and i did. ultimately i guessed that "hey this is about the afterlife which means death is like a thing, it's probably like secretly about heavy shit" and i guessed wrong. also i do not vibe with the character writing sorry, everyone feels one dialogue box away from keysmashing to express heightened emotion and referencing some niche tumblr in-joke from like 2017. if that sounds palatable to you go for it, but its not my speed

really like the music and visuals though!

i think i must've browsed through the furry games available on Steam when i came across this free visual novel with a cutesy minimalist artstyle.
i was honestly really caught off-guard by how much I enjoyed the game, in the best way possible. it's a rather short experience, i beat it in 3 hours, a guide by my side for some of the more cryptic parts. but I truly enjoyed my time with it cause the writing is just so enjoyable! it is equally funny when it wants to be and touching when it needs to be. at the end of it you truly like everyone in the cast and some moments really hit me emotionally. I also really enjoyed the soundtrack, huge shoutout to the end credits theme.
Purrgatory is deceitfully simple, but its charming presentation and heart-warming story completely won me over, to the point that I still remember some parts of my playthrough really well. also it's hecking free!!!! go play it!!!!