Years in the past, I visited Houtong Cat Village, a former coal mining city in Taiwan that has since been taken over by cats. The place is a cornucopia of feline residents: black cats loafing on parapets, white ones lazing on motorcycle seats, and even an exhausted calico lounging on high of the city’s weathered mascot statue. Cat-themed cafes and kitty kitsch are plentiful, and you can’t stroll a couple of meters with out crouching to greet a sleepy tabby. Time appears to decelerate considerably there. But earlier than you already know it, the solar has set, the cats have retreated to the snuggest of nooks, and it’s time to go away.
Mineko’s Night time Market may be very a lot paying homage to that coziness. For one factor, the sport is about in the same village, one centered round a cat creature of some kind: a towering, rotund feline known as Nikko sporting a picket masks. Scenes from Mineko’s Night time Market harken again to previous Sunday cartoons, the hand-painted textures of the picket homes and retailers seemingly produced by layering paper cutouts atop each other. The residents are well mannered however reserved, except one blustering child who introduces himself as Bobo. As Mineko, a lady enamored with the folklore of the village, you change into quick mates with Bobo, mesh into the tightest of duos, and he pulls you into his quite a few exploits.
There’s additionally a myriad of small, stress-free duties you’ll be able to full at your leisure, akin to creating handicrafts, gathering sources, and petting as many cats as humanly doable. Mineko’s Night time Market is a gradual, leisurely expertise that permits you to roll alongside at your individual tempo — one in which you’ll be able to whereas away many hours with out realizing how lengthy you’ve lingered.
Picture: Meowza Video games/Humble Bundle
A legendary story nudges this pastoral affair alongside. Bobo shortly embroils you in a grand conspiracy round Nikko, which he believes has one thing to do with the presence of sharply dressed, shady-looking thugs who’ve trapped the island’s cats in tiny cages. Bobo sees himself as a strategist, however like most sidekicks, he’s a planner, not a doer. This implies it’s as much as you, as Mineko, to journey to varied components of the island to free these kittens through a sequence of stealth minigames, the place you’ll have to sidestep the thugs’ imaginative and prescient cones to keep away from detection. Then there’s the village itself; as soon as a bustling vacationer attraction earlier than your arrival, it has deteriorated to a considerably dilapidated state, its eponymous evening market largely vacant and lifeless. Desperate to inject extra exercise (and income) again into the scene, its organizer asks you to arrange a sales space to promote your handmade crafts and different odds and ends.
Whereas a lot of Mineko’s Night time Market is cozy and languid, early chunks of it border on laborious — it begins at a gradual, heavy gait. Many of the island is locked away, and you’ll solely go to sure areas when you have got sufficient funds to buy particular instruments. And with solely a scant few sources to collect on the village, your solely technique of incomes money is by frantically plucking as many flowers as you’ll be able to to make bouquets to promote on the evening market, which solely takes place on Saturdays. Furthermore, the cat-rescue stealth minigames can get stale shortly, provided that they aren’t significantly difficult.
Picture: Meowza Video games/Humble Bundle
However when you recover from the preliminary lull and acquire entry to extra of the island’s corners, Mineko’s Night time Market ramps up considerably, with an almost dizzying quantity of actions to pursue. Extra areas yield extra sources to reap, with which you’ll be able to craft extra objects. Neighbors will ask you for favors, and in alternate, they’ll grant you new crafting recipes. You’ll be able to invite new, pleasant retailers to arrange store on the village. You’ll be able to go fishing because the seasons change and new flora and fish seem. Because the city will get livelier, once-abandoned museums reopen, encouraging you to show an assortment of meals, flowers, and gems.
For all of its ancillary pastimes, Mineko’s Night time Market actually springs to life on in-game Saturdays, the fruits of all of your exhausting work over the week. On the titular bazaar, you’ll be able to promote your items to haggling prospects, go to different cubicles, impulsively buy pleasant snacks and plush toys, and take part within the occasion’s festivities, from cat racing to reside performances. When the occasion concludes, I trudge again dwelling within the quiet of the evening, desirous to dive again into the zen-like routines of chores and pastoral work in subsequent days.
Admittedly, there are days the place it looks like friendship on this quaint little city is conditional, an odd feeling that everybody needs one thing from you: 10 items of paper for fixing a flimsy wall, two matcha lattes for a thirsty neighbor, a sports activities drink for an aspiring athlete. At one level, a vendor even jokingly requests 120 blocks of wooden to construct their retailer — a joke available at your expense. However if you happen to can shelve these uncomfortable ideas, Mineko’s Night time Market generally is a place to linger for a couple of hours. Be it chipping away at your laundry listing of mundane however comforting chores or promoting some handmade kitty kitsch on the evening market, this cozy sim is an invite to decelerate and scent the roses. Or slightly, pet the cats, as they flop over in contentment, their purrs resonating from deep inside their bellies.
Mineko’s Night time Market was launched on Sept. 26 on Mac, Nintendo Change, PlayStation 5, and Home windows PC. The sport was reviewed on PC utilizing a pre-release obtain code supplied by Humble Bundle. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These don’t affect editorial content material, although Vox Media could earn commissions for merchandise bought through affiliate hyperlinks. Yow will discover further details about Polygon’s ethics coverage right here.
