When I first saw this game, I knew I was gonna end up playing and enjoying it, and just as expected I did not fool myself. Little Kitty, Big City will most likely go down as 2024's cutest and most adorable game (And also totally the most realistic cat simulator ever made) if nothing else better comes, and I quite liked it!
The game is very simple in all aspects, including the premise: You're a little kitty napping in your home's window, when you suddenly slip off and tumble down into the city below, now you must find your way home... eventually! Since you're down here, why not explore the neighborhood and meet the animals that live there? As you can see, there's not really a narrative behind the story, only the final objective of returning home, and you can theoretically finish this as fast as you want to (Glitchless speedrun WR as of writing is a little over 6 minutes!), but then you'd miss out on all the fun parts of this game.
The gameplay loop's concept is something akin to Untitled Goose Game, but much more innocent and harmless. Geese are hellspawn craving for death, destruction and despair, a chaotic evil entity. In this, you just wanna help your animal friends and get back home... and maybe break a vase or twenty. This game is a 3D platformer, there's lots of climbing and jumping (As expected of a cat game), and I've seen people describe the controls as clunky but I'm not sure I'd call it that, it plays like I expected a cat game to play, and never had any issues. The map isn't very big, but there's a decent verticality to it, and shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to explore completely.
As mentioned, there's only one real objective for the story: To go back home. But in your explorations, you'll meet other animals that will need your help, and these little sidequests are great motivators for you to explore and make mischief. In fact, if not for them and the achievements you can get while going around town, there would be no reason to play this game for more than an hour. Every character has their quirks, and just as expected they're also cute. Some people have said that they talk too much, but that honestly came as a surprise to me, most interactions were nice and never felt dragged out. Humans are present too, but you don't interact with them much, you can get some pets, make them angry, get the things they're carrying by tripping them, so on and so forth.
The more technical aspects of this game, such as visuals and sounds, are basic and do their job just fine. I like the art style, everything is colorful with no complex textures or geometry, the music is like elevator music/bossa nova to compliment the cozy vibes, and the sound effects/jingles have the same purpose. There were a couple of bugs though (One that stood out was chopped audio and sound artifacts when trying to use any audio setting that wasn't stereo), which is kinda weird for a game that seems so simple technically speaking.
This game is no GOTY contender. It takes some time to get used to the controls, it's a little too short even thoroughly exploring, and even more so if you don't feel like doing it (I explored as much as I could and was done in 5 hours), and can get a little grindy if you wanna get all achievements. But it does what it proposes very well: It is a chill, fun and cute experience, a perfectly cozy comfort game, and a great pick for when you need a break. I feel like people will generally rate this between a 7 and an 8, and I thought about giving it a middle of the road 7.5 given my enjoyment despite its shortcomings, but it's been nice enough for me to bump it up to the upper end of the scale.
SCORE: 8/10
The game is very simple in all aspects, including the premise: You're a little kitty napping in your home's window, when you suddenly slip off and tumble down into the city below, now you must find your way home... eventually! Since you're down here, why not explore the neighborhood and meet the animals that live there? As you can see, there's not really a narrative behind the story, only the final objective of returning home, and you can theoretically finish this as fast as you want to (Glitchless speedrun WR as of writing is a little over 6 minutes!), but then you'd miss out on all the fun parts of this game.
The gameplay loop's concept is something akin to Untitled Goose Game, but much more innocent and harmless. Geese are hellspawn craving for death, destruction and despair, a chaotic evil entity. In this, you just wanna help your animal friends and get back home... and maybe break a vase or twenty. This game is a 3D platformer, there's lots of climbing and jumping (As expected of a cat game), and I've seen people describe the controls as clunky but I'm not sure I'd call it that, it plays like I expected a cat game to play, and never had any issues. The map isn't very big, but there's a decent verticality to it, and shouldn't take more than a couple of hours to explore completely.
As mentioned, there's only one real objective for the story: To go back home. But in your explorations, you'll meet other animals that will need your help, and these little sidequests are great motivators for you to explore and make mischief. In fact, if not for them and the achievements you can get while going around town, there would be no reason to play this game for more than an hour. Every character has their quirks, and just as expected they're also cute. Some people have said that they talk too much, but that honestly came as a surprise to me, most interactions were nice and never felt dragged out. Humans are present too, but you don't interact with them much, you can get some pets, make them angry, get the things they're carrying by tripping them, so on and so forth.
The more technical aspects of this game, such as visuals and sounds, are basic and do their job just fine. I like the art style, everything is colorful with no complex textures or geometry, the music is like elevator music/bossa nova to compliment the cozy vibes, and the sound effects/jingles have the same purpose. There were a couple of bugs though (One that stood out was chopped audio and sound artifacts when trying to use any audio setting that wasn't stereo), which is kinda weird for a game that seems so simple technically speaking.
This game is no GOTY contender. It takes some time to get used to the controls, it's a little too short even thoroughly exploring, and even more so if you don't feel like doing it (I explored as much as I could and was done in 5 hours), and can get a little grindy if you wanna get all achievements. But it does what it proposes very well: It is a chill, fun and cute experience, a perfectly cozy comfort game, and a great pick for when you need a break. I feel like people will generally rate this between a 7 and an 8, and I thought about giving it a middle of the road 7.5 given my enjoyment despite its shortcomings, but it's been nice enough for me to bump it up to the upper end of the scale.
SCORE: 8/10