Cat Capacity Review

Game: Cat Capacity
Genre: Action, Platformer,
System: Steam (Windows)
Developer|Publisher: JT Mitchell | Dos Gatitos Games
Controller Support: No
Price: UK £3.99 | US $4.99 | EU € 3,99
Release Date: November 2nd, 2021

Review code provided with many thanks to Dos Gatitos Games

Cat Lady

Cat Capacity is a very unusual looking game that takes inspiration from titles like Katamari. The premise here is you play an old lady moving around in her cauldron with chicken legs. It’s essentially a happier version of Baba Yaga, who comes from Slavic folklore and is usually portrayed as a creepy witch. There’s so much more to this character but we won’t be covering that in this review. One might say this incarnation of the character has quite an affinity for cats. If you’re looking for a game that’s a little unusual but has an original idea then you may want to take a peek at Cat Capacity.

Collect and Store

Cat Capacity is a 3D action game played across several levels. The goal is to collect cats in your cauldron, then look for a wardrobe or chest of drawers and proceed to throw the cats in them for storage, within a set time limit. The level is complete once you grab all the cats which are randomly placed around the 3D environment. It may sound easy but the game offers many challenges to keep you on your chicken leg toes. For starters, you can’t store all the cats in the same place. Overfill it and the furniture will burst and an even bigger green cat will spawn adding to the challenge.

There are also red cats that will attack you unless you calm them down with a power-up such as a water spray. Other power-ups include a tuna can that lures all the cats to a specific area and catnip to calm down the red cats and deal with the giant green ones. These power-ups are dotted about the level and spawn regularly. The controls are pretty tight and easy to use. This title sadly doesn’t feature any controller support, so I hope your WASD skills are up to scratch. If not it’s pretty easy to pick up after a few rounds. You can move and jump, a detail I liked is if you’re carrying too many cats your ability to jump will be impacted so be careful with your weight.

Cloaked Figures

Later on, in the game, you also have to deal with a rather odd character which is a rabbit in a hooded cloak. They spawn after a set time and proceed to search for you turning the game into a stealth-like experience. If you get caught, the level is over, but you are able to run away. I guess you could call it a game of cat and rabbit?. Finally, in the later parts of the game, you have the clocked mice who grab your cats and lock them in a cage. These were the biggest nuisance, as when they find you they grab you, carry you for a period before throwing you near the edge of the level.

The game feels like it was at its best when it focused on cat collecting but since the whole experience is less than 2 hours it feels like these mechanics are not given much space to develop. I can see most gamers enjoying the first few levels but possibly jumping off once they get to the cloaked animals which require a lot more patience to overcome. 

Cat Face 

Graphically this is not a very nice looking game. I would go as far as to say it’s pretty muddled and ugly. The character model for the grandma in her cauldron just looks kinda creepy. When you collect cats the ones that stack on your character or in the wardrobes don’t always match the ones you collect. The level designs are OK, simple island-like designs floating in space but a lot of the same environments are repeated making things feel pretty familiar quickly.

I hope you like cat noises because you are going to hear a lot of them. Of course, working as a solo developer is not easy. You do the best with the resources you have and as someone who sadly doesn’t have the best flair for art beyond stick figure drawing I do sympathize here and clearly see the effort made. The praise I will give is that the game certainly has a weird but quirky vibe like Katamari, from which it takes heavy inspiration from.

Conclusion – Catamari 

Cat Capacity is a title I would advise coming into with caution. Its muddled art style won’t work for everyone. For me, the game scrapes a pass for a few reasons. For starters it didn’t have any obvious bugs which hampered its gameplay, it felt like a complete experience. I also really admired the solo developers’ attempt at something original here. Certainly rough around the edges and plenty of room to improve the gameplay which lacks depth. I still ended up playing through the entire two-hour experience which did hook my attention. I hope the developer continues as if they continue at this trajectory they will be onto a winner in the near future. Cat Capacity is not purr-fect but there is certainly fun to be had. 

Want to try the cat antics first? There’s a free demo available on Steam.

Final Verdict: I Like It