In an age of sprawling RPGs with hundreds of hours of content and a plethora of collectibles, it can be hard to fit everything in. Sure I could go to my nephew’s wedding, but then who would save Eorzea from the various calamities befalling it? The answer would, of course, be the countless other Final Fantasy XIV players, but that’s beside the point – video games are too big, and there isn’t enough time to get through everything.
Thankfully in this world of competing to have the biggest maps and the most McGuffins, indie developers have embraced the short form to bring delightful, easy-to-digest games to our doorstep. Games such as Venba, Dear Me, I Was… And A Little To The Left has accomplished this in their own way over recent years, but joining their ranks is a story of a cat on a mission to deliver some post – nothing more, nothing less; welcome to Catto’s Post Office.
Awaking on their birthday, Catto the postcat is shocked to find that people have forgotten their birthday! Deliver parcels to the feline residents of the town and partake in small acts of feline-focused chaos along the way. As far as plots go, it’s as simple as it gets – you primarily walk from point A to point B in a small (and I mean very small) seaside town to deliver parcels to their respective recipients, taking on small tasks along the way that range from opening an oven to stop the bread from burning all the way to looking at the stars.
With a runtime of less than an hour even for a completionist, each of the characters has been written with clarity in mind – Eepy Cat is constantly sleepy; Forgetful Cat is forgetful; and Sous Chef Cat is, unsurprisingly to those of you who have been following the pattern, a sous chef. I’ll spare you the usual ‘commedia dell’arte’ jokes, but it isn’t difficult to fall in love with the cast of goofballs that populate the town.
Gameplay is fairly limited by design, with your main course of action being to walk around and interact with objects around you, but Catto’s Post Office also has the good sense to include a dedicated meow button, something we can all agree is a necessity in games of this kind. These simplistic controls are still incredibly versatile given that different objects are interacted with in different ways – cans can be kicked, plant pots pushed over and cardboard boxes clambered into for the ultimate comfort.
Without providing any spoilers (not that the game is particularly strict with its narrative), you’ll be sent on a joyous adventure that is only marred by how short it is – despite the small runtime being a net positive, it does leave the world lacking in some ways. The cast isn’t particularly expansive, so distinguishing each feline friend won’t prove too much of a challenge generally, but your brief time with them can leave some characters easily forgotten.
One place in which Catto’s Post Office does excel is in the charms of its writing, design and audio – as you walk along the pier, your humble postcat will stop to ‘ek ek ek!’ at the sea birds; characters and areas are designed in a simplistic but incredibly effective (and importantly, very cute) style as well as the music and audio proving itself as a relaxed, sublime experience.
Not much can be said about the game that wouldn’t simply ruin the short experience, especially given how affordable the game is – all that can be said is that for those in the market for a short, adorable adventure who have an hour to kill, you’ll certainly get your money’s worth.
