Game: Cat Cafe Manager
Genre: Simulation, Strategy
System: Nintendo Switch (also on Steam (Windows))
Developers | Publishers: Roost Games | Freedom Games
Age Rating: US Teen | EU 12+
Price: US $19.99 | UK £18.99 | EU € 19,99
Release Date: April 14th, 2022
Review code used, with many thanks to Stride PR.
Cat Cafe Manager by Roost Games might be your game if you love cats and simulation games. So, let’s find out what it is all about.
Town of Caterwaul Way
You arrive in the countryside town of Caterwaul Way, where you once lived with your Mother and Father. Originally, when your family left Caterwaul Way, Granny stayed behind in the town as she was running a business and couldn’t just up sticks and move. So you have returned to take over the running of Granny’s business.
After a little customising of your character, where you can choose their name, hairstyle, hair and skin colour, it’s time to start running Granny’s Cat Cafe.
Granny’s Cafe
Granny’s Cafe isnt an ordinary cafe as Caterwaul Way is a town full of stray cats that Granny looks after in her Cafe. You’ll have your hands full running the cafe and taking care of the needs of the cats and customers. However, all is not as it seems in Caterwaul Way; the shadow of a dark presence lurks in Caterwaul Way, the Grimalkin who has a tale to tell and warns you of some real catty mysteries happening in the town. Meow!
Cats and Customers
Cat Cafe Managers’ gameplay centres around designing and building the Cafe, managing the Cafe and staff, taking orders from customers, and, most importantly, adopting stray cats.
The customers that visit the Cafe are a mixture of would-be artists, people who fish, witches and vagabonds, to name a few. Things start small in Cat Cafe Manager. A meagre cafe with a few essentials is all you have at the start of the game. Initially, I could only serve water in my Cafe, and you also begin with only one cat, but as the game progresses, you watch your Cafe grow.
Delight and Resources
Hopefully, if the customers are happy with the service in the Cafe, they will leave the Cafe full of Delight. Delight increases your friendship rating with the game NPCs, and as it increases, they give you gifts, usually an item of decoration for your Cafe. Additionally, you must identify the right food to serve your customers in the Cafe, as not all customers like the same types of food or beverages.
Each customer that visits your Cafe pays for their food with various resources, such as fabric needed for furniture and decorations or Necter, which is spent in the market to buy recipes and ingredients. I like the way the resources are handled in the game, as by inviting different customers to your Cafe, you never really run out of resources to expand.
Visit the Shops and the Mysterious Shrine
You can visit the shops in the town to buy recipes, ingredients, furniture, decorations and cat food. Then, as Caterwaul Way is also home to many stray felines, you can lure the cats to your Cafe to adopt them. Once they are adopted, you can train them up and eventually, they can be given a forever home by visiting the notice board in the village.
There is a shrine in the town similar to a skill tree that you can use to increase the number of chairs allowed in the cafe or add various decorations. You can hire staff who will serve the customers; Cafe staff also have assigned roles and must be trained to improve their skills.
The village of Caterwaul has plenty of colourful locals, and having good relationships with them will be a significant part of the gameplay, as you can receive gifts. In addition, you can use the gifts to decorate the Cafe. You can buy furniture sets and select a furniture theme to give the Cafe a distinct style.
Always Something to Do
Cat Cafe Manager has a good variety of gameplay, as with each day in the Cafe, there is always something that needs to be taken care of. Adopting the cats and making sure all the customers leave happy is quite an addicting gameplay loop. Even early on, it’s a cycle that feels like it is constantly feeding into itself and growing. If you do the task, you get resources that make you better at doing your job. For example, your Cafe can become fancier or offer more variety in food.
I like how the story unfolds slowly by inviting regular customers to your Cafe. Though there is always plenty to do in the Cafe, you never feel rushed or overwhelmed by it all, and you can take the gameplay at your own pace.
Visuals and Controls
The characters are well-animated, as are all the cute cats. You will meet all the quirky characters, such as Bonner, the old fisherman who has long tales to tell. The music has quite a catchy tune, so much so that after playing the game for this review, the music is stuck in my head.
The game performs well on the Nintendo Switch. I do have one niggle, and that is the controls. While they do work fine, there is the odd time when taking an order from a customer can prove fiddly. The game doesn’t always recognise that your character is beside the customer, ready to take an order. I had to move my character back and forth a few times until it triggered the response, and I could press the A button.
It’s not game-breaking, but after playing for a while, it gets a little frustrating for the player.
Conclusion – A Purrfectly Good Time
Cafe Cat Manager is an enjoyable addition to the simulation genre on the Nintendo Switch. While playing the game, you can tell that the developers have put a lot of love into the game’s development and are cat lovers. It is a relaxing business sim with no pressure to hurry you along, and who could resist all the cute cats while you find them forever homes where they can live happily.
Final Verdict: I Like It A Lot 