Little Kitty, Big City brought me closer to my cat

I recently moved into a new apartment, graduating from a boxy one-bedroom to a much larger two-bedroom railroad-style space. It’s been a great change for me, but it’s my cat who is thriving. She’s no longer a paperweight glued to my couch. She spends the days bouncing between rooms, jumping off of furniture, sneaking into cabinets, and peering out windows. Her entire world has tripled and she’s become a new creature because of it.

As fate would have it, that would also be the subject of the first game I played in my new apartment. Little Kitty, Big City is an adorable new indie game about a black housecat accidentally finding itself lost in town after falling off its windowsill. Had I played it in another context, I might have been tempted to write it off as a cute, but light indie curiosity (the kind of game that’s perfect for Xbox Game Pass). Instead, it’s a classic case of the right place, right time for me. For one precious afternoon, I could see my cat’s big new world through her eyes.

On the prowl

Little Kitty, Big City is sure to draw some immediate parallels to Stray thanks to its feline hero. The two share plenty of DNA, but the big difference is that Little Kitty, Big City is more of a Saturday morning cartoon than the brainier sci-fi of Stray. As soon as I gain control of my fallen hero, I’m let loose in a small open city where I can get up to the same slapstick hijinks that my own cat annoyingly seems to love.

Scrounging around in trash cans? Check. Knocking over potted plants? Check. Running under people’s legs to trip them up? Check. All of those familiar behaviors become helpful tools as I explore the world via some vertical platforming that’s built into it. Everything here is a little more playful than in Stray, right down to the cat having full-on conversations with oversized raccoons and crows trying to swindle me out of all the shiny things I’ve picked up. Its lighthearted cartoon comedy, enhanced by a bright and breezy art style.

There are plenty of little annoyances that I could pick at. Most of them lie in clumsy platforming, as I need to stop and aim each pounce as I bound over objects. It’s imprecise, leading to a lot of unintended falls — though perhaps that’s realistic depending on your own cat’s gracefulness. I hit a few bugs along the way too, including one recurring issue where my cat would freeze in place when trying to jump into trash cans (an issue I imagine will be patched out quickly). Thankfully, the adventure itself is slim enough that quirks like that aren’t problems for very long.

While it’s not the most ambitious title, its sweetness shines through. It tells a precious story of a cat getting to experience the wide world outside of the few walls it knows. It gets to experience the joy of pouncing on birds, zooming down long streets, and terrorizing convenience stores for the first time. It’s a purely joyful experience about seeing a familiar world from an entirely new perspective. Sights I’ve passed over a million times in other open-world games become small playgrounds here as I explore every corner of them.

That’s what my own cat is going through right now. For the past week, I’ve seen her more curious and active than ever. Whereas she used to be glued to me in my old small apartment, she’s now gained a newfound independence with the increase in space. She spends her days exploring now, with no shortage of surfaces to jump on and windows to peer out of. It’s a welcome quality-of-life upgrade for me, but it’s world-changing for her. Little Kitty, Big City helped me feel that change, and I’m even more confident in my moving decision as a result.

You don’t have to own a cat to appreciate the adventure, though. Little Kitty, Big City is an easy charmer that you can knock out in a relaxing weekend afternoon or two. But if you don’t own a cat, be warned: You might find yourself running to the nearest shelter afterwards to give a furry friend a new life.

Little Kitty, Big City is out now on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Nintendo Switch, and PC.

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