Little Kitty, Big City — the cat-simulator that’s perfect for casual gamers and cat lovers
This bite-sized adventure of a black cat trying to find their way home launched last month from indie game developer Double Dagger, with this being their debut game. The game promised the players’ an adventure as a cat that you can put a plethora of cute hats on, and many were immediately hooked. Of course, this game has a lot more to offer than just cuteness and roaming the streets as a feline.
Little Kitty, Big City is the perfect game for those who wanted to play Stray, but were put off by the cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic environment and being chased by metal-eating, mutated, pink blobs. It’s the perfect game for the casual gamer, offering an open, but small and manageable world to explore, easily achievable quests, and other animals, reptiles, and even insects to interact with throughout the world. You can complete the main story along with most of the side quests in a matter of 2–4 hours.
I had a lot of fun finding new characters to talk to and help out, and was surprised by how entertaining and genuinely funny the dialogue was — yes, all of the animals can talk to one another, why wouldn’t they? You can choose dialogue options for your cat who has quite the personality on them, and is also probably the nicest cat you will ever encounter.
Outside of the world and characters, the gameplay did show its hand a bit in this being from a small indie studio. Nothing that truly hindered my overall gameplay experience, but still could be infuriating at times. The map, for instance, orients itself to have you facing your cat head-on while it’s open, so when you close it, your POV gets completely re-oriented again, and you lose all sense of direction. Not great when you’re trying to figure out what direction you’re heading on the map in order to get to a place of interest. I’m not sure what the logic would be behind choosing to cause the map to re-orient the camera, but it does much more harm than good.
As for the POV as a whole, I heavily advise widening the field of view before you even try moving; the default is far too close up and claustrophobic. I understand the idea was to put you at the viewpoint of a cat, but when you quite literally become a little kitty in a big city, it becomes much harder to navigate said big city. The cat itself is also a bit too clumsy to control at times; you have a lot of ground to cover with tiny legs, and when you run, handling become a bit of an issue. This wouldn’t be a big deal if it weren’t for the fact that every time you run into something, you lose control of the cat as it pauses to shake their head and reorient themself. Forcing the player to wait for an animation to play out every single time you knock into something does become tedious, especially when you’re trying to complete a task.
Moving around the city is made a bit easier, however, by the implementation of fast travel. You have to unlock every “portal” but it’s fairly easy to do so — just pounce on a bird and grab a feather. It makes sense in the game, trust me. The only qualm I have with the fast travel is that if you realize you don’t want to fast travel, you can’t exit, you have to choose somewhere to go. Luckily, you can choose to stay where you are, but you still have to watch the cutscene of your cat flying through a wormhole every time, so it would be less time-consuming to be able to just exit the menu.
It would also help if you could be looking at your map when you go to fast travel, rather than a fast travel-specific map that doesn’t show any key locations and only other portals to arrive at. Most players forget immediately where they’re planning to go, it’s just the fact of life, so having the map in front of us at all times is a necessity. Otherwise it just becomes trial and error, which again, is time consuming.
The game also includes a climbing mechanic that is necessary for getting back home; you must collect and eat fish to be able to climb vines, and have the energy to climb them for long enough to reach your destination. The climbing mechanic for this is tedious to say the least. The control of the cat is not great, especially if you reach your goal but you’ve run out of energy, and you’re not able to leap to the side to land. You’re supposed to be able to, mind you, as you can leap directionally while climbing, but once you run out of energy, the only option is to drop.
It’s a bit janky, and given it’s a mechanic required to use in order to complete the game, it could use some more polishing. I watched my cat quite literally vibrate multiple times if I tried to direct it too much; it lacks the smoothness you would expect when controlling a cat, and necessary for a climbing mechanic to be player-friendly.
Aside from the mechanics and story, your little friend is customizable! Well, you can put hats on them. But the hats are adorable; you can find hats throughout the world, earn them through completing quests, or purchase them using “shines” — garbage — from an opportunistic crow. You eventually get the ability to take photos as well, meaning you can snap pictures of your little buddy in all of the silly hats you’ve found.
Overall, this game is a delight. The mechanics could use some work, but for a debut game from a small indie developer, it’s a smashing success. It’s cute, funny, casual, and worth the few hours it’ll take to play. Also, once you complete the main quest, you’re free to continue exploring this big city to your heart’s content. Keep tripping humans, collecting shinies and hats, digging through trash cans, and causing general mayhem.
This game gets 4 out of 5 stars from me for a good time had by all.
You can find Little Kitty, Big City, on Xbox, Nintendo Switch, and PC.
