I’m a strong independent Catto and I can deliver my own birthday presents.
Sink your toe-beans into CATTO'S POST OFFICE - a sweet and moving game that has been packaged nice and snug within a short, easily playable framework. You play as Catto, the town’s dedicated post-cat, awakening on your birthday to find…not a single one of your seemingly close friends remembered. Being far more reasonable than I would be in this situation, Catto sets out on a day that explicitly gets described to him as not holding any important events, especially not a birthday. By this point, I would have collected a body count, perhaps levelled a town. Catto, very reasonably, just delivers mail.
Be warned, potential postal recruits - the rest of this review is packed full of spoilers.
Holding about 30 minutes of game play, a large joy of the game was finding all of the secret Steam achievements, like running through the supermarket puddle, or finding the hidden duckies. Paired with the larger than life personalities of the sweet kitties living in your town, you are sure to have a busy day handing out parcels and generally being traumatised by the forgetfulness of your peers.
It is no surprise at the end of the day when, all packages delivered, it ticks over to nap-o’clock. Awakening at nighttime, you find a parcel on the bench, requesting you to take it to the town hall. That’s right, your good friends (mostly) didn’t forget about you - they planned a surprise party for you! Traverse the hall, collecting well wishes and gifts, the latter of which are strongly implied to have been delivered by you throughout the day to the respective gift givers, but it’s the thought that counts, right?
Honestly, as someone who had a birthday fast approaching when I first stuck into this game, I went through a range of emotions that can only be described as ‘overdramatic almost birthday person projects WAY too hard onto this game’.
This game hits 'cosy' right on its head and spawned a personal desire to one day have a town full of cats spend a day gaslighting me only to engage in various forms of pyrotechny.
However, until that day comes, it’s a very happy birthday to Catto, and a round of aPAWse to Assistant Cat for the lovely party!
A copy of CATTO'S POST OFFICE on PC was provided to SIFTER for the purpose of this review.
