So recently I finally gave into trying out Neko Atsume, the kitty collector game that many have enjoyed even when the game was purely in Japanese. The game's a lot more accessible since it has English translations, although even with that provided it's not always clear what's going on.
Beyond the cute kitty art, the game actually challenge a lot about how we view games. If anything, not much will happen if you stay in the app staring at your yard and whatever goodies you purchase for your cats. Cats decide to visit your yard when you turn the app off or at least leave it on idle mode when you return to the home screen of your mobile device. So as a "collector" game, it feels more like bird watching where you peek at the app from time to time, see which cats have come to visit, and then leave once all the food bowls have been refilled. It can seem quite silly, but the game has grown on me.
Plus when you're having a stressful work day, there's an odd sense of satisfaction when you load up the app for a minute, see your cats, get a memento gift, and then go back to work. The game is as low or high maintenance as you need it to be. And these days, I hardly have time for games more complicated than this.
Comments
Post a Comment