Overall, this was a cute and cozy little game to relax with when I was in the mood to turn my brain off for a while. It has a diverse cast of characters, a pleasantly chill soundtrack, a very pretty art style, and some really fun design elements.
The entire gameplay loop is based around quests. This didn't bother me much, but if you're the type of person where games with a lot of "fetch quests" bother you, this definitely isn't the game for you. Most of the quests involve either finding a specific item for your cafe or traveling across the map to go find people or animals. This is a good way to get the player to explore around the map, but it is also very repetitive. It felt quite short compared to similar games I have played but I played the whole game in just a few long play sessions, which may have influenced my experience a bit. The game seems more intended to be played in many shorter sessions, rather than all at once.
The characters are very cute, with delightful designs, but they are also quite flat in terms of personality and story. Your only real interaction with any of the characters is through their questlines. Once you finish a character's questline, they may show up in the questline of another character, but besides that they're stuck repeating the same lines over and over for all eternity. The game wasn't really designed with longevity or replay value in mind, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but definitely something to keep in mind. The rigid focus on quests as a means of interacting with characters with a lack of additional dialogue to flesh them out leaves them feeling quite flat, though this is worse in some cases than others. This is a shame, because I met some characters I was really fascinated by and wanted to get to know better, but once I finished their questlines there was no more substance to them.
I had the most fun in the game hunting around to collect all of the cats (and other animals!) scattered around the map. Some of them were quite difficult to find and it felt rewarding when I did find them. I liked carrying them around, giving them names, petting them, playing with them, and just generally goofing around with them. The game has a lot of different ways of interacting with the animals, and even if they didn't necessarily serve a "purpose" in gameplay or story progression I spent a lot of time just messing around with those mechanics. As you get further into the game you also unlock other mechanics and new ways of interacting with your animals. No spoilers, but these were very fun too.
The game also has some design elements. I was surprised how in-depth the system for decorating the cafe was. You can get furniture for your cafe and change its colors, patterns, etc. You unlock new patterns to use as the game progresses and often get furniture as rewards for quests, or you can buy it at a shop. You can move and rotate things exactly as you like, without any snap-to-grid interface getting in your way. The game also lets you design your outfit in a similarly in-depth fashion. You can edit the colors and patterns of your clothes, unlocking and purchasing new clothes throughout the game. If you're really into that sort of design-focused gameplay, I actually think Calico does it quite well.
Also, HUGE bonus points for the character creator. An actual diverse range of skin tones (completely select your own from a color-picker) plus actual diverse body types/shapes. Any game where fat people exist gets a gold star in my book.
The actual core gameplay is the series of cooking minigames you play to make foods and drinks for your cafe. These were pretty fun at times, but also pretty frustrating. Some aspects of these minigames were very repetitive and became a bit of a slog after a while. Despite the minigame for each menu item being unique, many of them were quite similar or had elements which were identical. I encountered a few bugs which forced me to restart a minigame completely over multiple times, which became very frustrating. Despite this, I generally enjoyed the minigames, especially the more unique ones.
I initially got this game on Nintendo Switch. Like others have mentioned, it was very buggy. I later realized that I just so happened to have already gotten the game on PC in an itch bundle, so I switched to playing it on PC, and that was much better. If you have the choice, I definitely recommend getting the game on PC instead of Switch.
- L
The entire gameplay loop is based around quests. This didn't bother me much, but if you're the type of person where games with a lot of "fetch quests" bother you, this definitely isn't the game for you. Most of the quests involve either finding a specific item for your cafe or traveling across the map to go find people or animals. This is a good way to get the player to explore around the map, but it is also very repetitive. It felt quite short compared to similar games I have played but I played the whole game in just a few long play sessions, which may have influenced my experience a bit. The game seems more intended to be played in many shorter sessions, rather than all at once.
The characters are very cute, with delightful designs, but they are also quite flat in terms of personality and story. Your only real interaction with any of the characters is through their questlines. Once you finish a character's questline, they may show up in the questline of another character, but besides that they're stuck repeating the same lines over and over for all eternity. The game wasn't really designed with longevity or replay value in mind, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but definitely something to keep in mind. The rigid focus on quests as a means of interacting with characters with a lack of additional dialogue to flesh them out leaves them feeling quite flat, though this is worse in some cases than others. This is a shame, because I met some characters I was really fascinated by and wanted to get to know better, but once I finished their questlines there was no more substance to them.
I had the most fun in the game hunting around to collect all of the cats (and other animals!) scattered around the map. Some of them were quite difficult to find and it felt rewarding when I did find them. I liked carrying them around, giving them names, petting them, playing with them, and just generally goofing around with them. The game has a lot of different ways of interacting with the animals, and even if they didn't necessarily serve a "purpose" in gameplay or story progression I spent a lot of time just messing around with those mechanics. As you get further into the game you also unlock other mechanics and new ways of interacting with your animals. No spoilers, but these were very fun too.
The game also has some design elements. I was surprised how in-depth the system for decorating the cafe was. You can get furniture for your cafe and change its colors, patterns, etc. You unlock new patterns to use as the game progresses and often get furniture as rewards for quests, or you can buy it at a shop. You can move and rotate things exactly as you like, without any snap-to-grid interface getting in your way. The game also lets you design your outfit in a similarly in-depth fashion. You can edit the colors and patterns of your clothes, unlocking and purchasing new clothes throughout the game. If you're really into that sort of design-focused gameplay, I actually think Calico does it quite well.
Also, HUGE bonus points for the character creator. An actual diverse range of skin tones (completely select your own from a color-picker) plus actual diverse body types/shapes. Any game where fat people exist gets a gold star in my book.
The actual core gameplay is the series of cooking minigames you play to make foods and drinks for your cafe. These were pretty fun at times, but also pretty frustrating. Some aspects of these minigames were very repetitive and became a bit of a slog after a while. Despite the minigame for each menu item being unique, many of them were quite similar or had elements which were identical. I encountered a few bugs which forced me to restart a minigame completely over multiple times, which became very frustrating. Despite this, I generally enjoyed the minigames, especially the more unique ones.
I initially got this game on Nintendo Switch. Like others have mentioned, it was very buggy. I later realized that I just so happened to have already gotten the game on PC in an itch bundle, so I switched to playing it on PC, and that was much better. If you have the choice, I definitely recommend getting the game on PC instead of Switch.
- L