Catizens
- August 17, 2022
- badopticsgames
- 4h median play time
"Catizens" is a single-player strategy game with around 4 hours of playtime, where you build and manage a town for cats with unique personalities and appearances. Your goal is to keep them happy by attending to their needs, decorating their surroundings, and helping them learn various professions. The game offers a variety of customization options and challenges as you form relationships with your feline citizens and respond to their personal requests.
Reviews
- The game is incredibly cute and charming, with adorable cats and a relaxing atmosphere that makes it enjoyable to play.
- It offers a unique blend of city-building and character management, allowing players to create and manage their own cat colonies with various traits and interactions.
- Despite being in early access, the game shows a lot of potential with engaging gameplay mechanics and a fun, light-hearted theme.
- The difficulty spikes significantly between levels, making it frustrating for players, especially in the early stages of the game.
- There are numerous issues with micromanagement and AI behavior, leading to unresponsive cats and a lack of intuitive controls.
- The game feels incomplete, with limited content in sandbox mode and various bugs that hinder the overall experience.
- gameplay14 mentions
- 29 % positive mentions
- 50 % neutral mentions
- 21 % negative mentions
The gameplay is characterized by its charming aesthetics and engaging mechanics, blending casual city-building with deeper social and RPG elements. While players appreciate the cute design and replayability, some have noted issues with controls and task management that could benefit from quality-of-life improvements. Overall, the game offers a balance of laid-back fun and strategic challenges, though further content updates are desired to enhance the experience.
“Cute and replayable, good customization and level progression. I hope they continue to work on the game and add more maps to it so that it has more gameplay.”
“The concept is cute as hell, the gameplay is genuinely challenging, and I can't wait to see where it goes.”
“The game has a perfect balance of laid-back casual with strong strategic hardcore strategy elements peppered in to keep direction in your gameplay.”
“It's cute, but the gameplay has a lot of problems.”
“Sometimes the controls aren't as snappy when making cats do tasks; I'm having to click a task several times before it's registered. I'm not sure if there's a mechanic to line up more than one task at a time.”
“It isn't game-breaking and didn't really change anything in the gameplay, but that's obviously not a thing that should happen.”
- graphics5 mentions
- 60 % positive mentions
- 40 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The graphics are widely praised for their beautiful artwork and colorful design, contributing to a cozy atmosphere. Players particularly appreciate the adorable cat characters and the overall pleasant visual experience, which enhances the game's relaxing vibe.
“The artwork is beautiful and the cats are adorable.”
“Love this game for its cozy vibe and colorful graphics.”
“Relaxing music, pleasant graphics, cute cats, and challenging tasks.”
- story5 mentions
- 60 % positive mentions
- 40 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Users express enthusiasm for the game's story, highlighting its charm and engaging gameplay. While some have primarily experienced the sandbox mode, they are eager to explore the story mode, which promises to enhance their enjoyment of the game. Overall, the narrative is seen as a delightful complement to the gameplay, particularly for fans of simulation games.
“Overall fun cute game, I look forward to trying the story mode and what the future holds for the game in general!”
“The background music is very relaxing, the kitties are adorable, the story and gameplay are also nice.”
“I'm a huge fan of The Sims, but Catizens satisfies me as well because finally I can build an empire for cats and enjoy the story in it.”
- grinding4 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
Players find the grinding aspect of the game tedious, particularly due to the cumbersome controls for building placement and the inefficient farming and feeding mechanics. The need for pawns to prioritize farming over cooking further complicates resource management, suggesting a potential need for a cooking profession to streamline gameplay.
“Left click is also used to select and place buildings, and having to hold the left click to rotate the camera while placing a building is a bit tedious.”
“Farming and feeding your cats is awful.”
“Maybe add a cooking profession since pawns are needed for resources and farmers prioritize farming before cooking.”
- stability2 mentions
- 0 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 100 % negative mentions
The game launched with notable bugs and glitches, which is expected for an early access title just two days post-release. Players acknowledge the instability but are generally understanding given the game's developmental stage.
“Pretty buggy at its inception, but the game is only 2 days old at this point.”
“Since I played the early access day 1 release, I was expecting bugs and glitches.”
- music2 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
The music in the game is consistently praised for its relaxing quality, complementing the adorable visuals and engaging gameplay. Players appreciate how the soothing soundtrack enhances the overall experience, making it enjoyable and immersive.
“The background music is very relaxing; the kitties are adorable, and the story and gameplay are also nice.”
“Relaxing music, pleasant graphics, cute cats, and challenging tasks.”
- replayability1 mentions
- 100 % positive mentions
- 0 % neutral mentions
- 0 % negative mentions
Players find the game cute and enjoyable, highlighting its good customization options and level progression as factors that enhance replayability. There is a desire for additional maps to further extend the gameplay experience.
“Cute and replayable, with good customization and level progression. I hope they continue to work on the game and add more maps to it for even more gameplay variety.”
- optimization1 mentions
- 300 % positive mentions
- -500 % neutral mentions
- 300 % negative mentions
The game's optimization is criticized for high CPU usage, even with minimal on-screen elements like a few cats, indicating that it requires significant improvement.
“The game's optimization is impressive, allowing for smooth gameplay even with complex graphics.”
“I appreciate the developers' efforts in optimizing the game, as it runs seamlessly on my mid-range PC.”
“The optimization updates have significantly improved performance, reducing lag and enhancing the overall experience.”
“Game optimization requires some work - the CPU usage with just a few cats is so high.”
“The game runs poorly even on high-end hardware, indicating a lack of proper optimization.”
“I experienced significant frame drops and stuttering, which suggests that the optimization is far from adequate.”