Neko Atsume: Why Am I Playing This Game?

I somehow heard on Twitter about this game. I think it’s been out for a long while (but with Japanese text only). And despite this language barrier, I think Casey has been playing the original. But now – there’s English text, and people seem to be really excited by it.

I downloaded the game last week, and have been playing it obsessively ever since. Although I’m not clear exactly why.

The premise is pretty straight-forward: you are in possession of a certain amount of fish (some silver, some gold). You also own a house with a yard. You job is to purchase various items (foot, toys, furniture) that will attract cats to your yard. You buy said items with your fish.

The cats won’t come to the yard unless there’s food, so that’s a priority. But you also want to give them something to play with so they’ll hang around. So you need some toys and some furniture, too.

If the cats have a good time and like what you’ve left out for them, they give you fish as a gift. And sometimes some other things as well. This is pretty much the game.

All you really do is set things up, and then you job is to go away. There are no controls or interactions, really. You just refill the food and set up the yard… and close the app. If you return some time later, there may be cats around just chillaxing or eating food. And you may find some fish as a “thank you,” from them.

You can take photo snapshots, and even look at specific cats in detail if you want. Although I have zero idea what any of these stats are or do.

The animations are cute, and I think it’s the surprise of what’s happened, since you left. There’s no real skill involved.

At best, this is a fish exchange rate game – whereby I’m trying to amass a larger portion of fish through various trades with the cats. I’m slowly building up to getting more gold fish, with the hope that I can expand my yard. And from there, I guess I’ll be… servicing more cats?

I don’t know what it is about this game. It’s cute and relaxing. And I just check in from time to time. Perhaps this is just a variation of the Tamagotchi, but in feline form?

If you’re curious to give this a whirl… it’s available for free, for both iPhone and Android.

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