Catto’s Post Office takes the smaller obstacles we all readily face in our daily lives and spotlights these troubles without compromising or diminishing how those small stumbles can still bring us anguish, hurt, moroseness, sadness, and melancholy. With a gorgeous environment alongside a jolly soundtrack, almost like the preschool shows that air in the early afternoons–it is as if I am playing a game reminiscent tonally of the intricately crafted worlds of animated shows such as Timothy Goes to School, Babar, Rupert, Little Bear, Franklin, and Elliot Moose, in the best of ways.
Catto’s Post
Office
Developer: In Shambles Studio
Price: $6.49 CAD
Platforms: Steam
The writer was provided a Steam code for
review.
Gamescom can be expensive, especially for indie developers, but last year, many developers were doing a “Gamescom trailers are more than 100k dollars, so here’s a GIF of my game…” trend on Twitter/X to rally folks together to see their cool, interesting, and new games. This was where I first saw Catto’s Post Office, a great-looking 3D cel-shaded game about a Postcat delivering mail. The GIF shows Catto destroying a potted plant and having it shatter.
Like any late-stage capitalism hellscape–catpalism hellscape in this sense–Catto works at the post office, which doubles as where you sleep in your room, which already sounds horrific for any folks, but to make matters worse, it is also his birthday, and none of Catto’s friends even remembers that it is his birthday today. Either way–Assistant Cat says you have many packages to deliver today, so you’d best get moving to the town’s denizens.
Heading out the door with a package in paws, I was infatuated with the strikingly gorgeous cel-shaded world. One of my favourite aspects of the game is that there is no UI cluttering the screen, and if you do want to figure out where to go or find your next delivery, you have to interact with the town map you find in front of the post office. This feature, or moreso the lack of UI features readily present in many games nowadays, can sometimes take you out of the experience, but Catto’s absence of UI contributes to immersing yourself in the game’s world with little delay.
You will be delivering packages around town to the florist, nursing home, and the Paws & Shores cafe, to name a few. Catfe? Some of the deliveries can be done out of order, since sometimes you have the option between choosing one of two you want to do first. The game has these little options throughout to give you a bit of player choice, which I found endearing. For example, when the grocery store owner yells at you about there being a wet floor, if you heeded the advice or just moseyed over the puddle, the preceding conversation will reflect the choice you made.
I was told the game could be finished in less than an hour, but I took my time exploring the town, playing tag with kittens, finding cute animal puns, kicking cans in the trash, and finding collectible rubber duckies, while listening to the game’s serene music. It was a pleasant excursion each time I went on my way to deliver a package, and interacting with other optional NPCs or chatting them up bombarded me with cat-centric puns in all of their cat-filled glory.
The grocery store was where I was in awe of how intricately crafted the game is, down to the tiniest details. I scanned the shelves, the way each shelf even had some empty space to showcase that this world is lived in, and even checked out the desserts alongside pastries in the game’s cafe. Every one of those little treats or items looked like exceptionally hand-crafted–paw-crafted in this case–details had taken place to fit everything so perfectly in this town. It felt like seeing a 3D diorama when stepping inside any of these locales. As if I could pick up these 3D modelled rooms with how enticing or accurate everything seemed to look–a real sense of place.
I do not care much about video game achievements nowadays, but it made me glad and happy for each one I got in the game by doing excursions outside of the main package delivery. Kicking a soccer ball into the goal, kicking more than a dozen stray cans into the trash, or even sitting in a box, which I heard cats love to do more than play with the toy that came out of the box. These achievements allowed me to interact in new ways and find new fun in this world when I was not on the post office duty.
Catto’s
Post Office combines
preschool show aesthetics with a surprisingly
touching story
Throughout the game, the sadness of Catto’s friends forgetting his birthday added up. There is a moment in the cafe, where Signore Mocha (which I did not know there would be cats of colour in the game to my happy surprise) has a picture of Catto’s birthday party from last year, which makes Catto feel sad–if you choose that option–about how nobody remembers his birthday this year, even though last year was wonderful. It made me tear up.
Friendship is important, and with the way I have felt for more than a year with events I have attended in the game industry–Catto’s experience of loneliness, isolation, and decatization hit extremely hard on a personal level, especially with how I have been mulling over in my solitude about friends, peers, relationships, and community in the game industry that have led me to similar desperation, as well.
The Final Word
Catto’s Post
Office is an adorable,
pun-filled, heartwarming, and sincere game, aware of
how aspects that might seem small or microscopic in
the grand scheme of things can still be extremely
important to certain individuals, especially to a
sensitive Postcat like Catto. The game made me feel
as if I was watching an animated show on TVOKids,
Treehouse TV, or Teletoon–sometimes your soul just
needs that sort of nourishing game
experience.
MonsterVine Rating: 4.5 out of 5 – Great
