Calico: the cat café that its own store page files under open world

Peachy Keen Games builds a simulation with no deadlines of its own — what you get to judge by are the store's screenshots and a trailer that plays without leaving the page.

A café to rebuild, with no clock running

Peachy Keen Games sets out a single task: take over the abandoned cat café and give it back to the neighborhood, filled with cute furniture, decorations, sweets and animals to look after. There is no villain and no clock — the game plays out in the empty space waiting to be filled, piece by piece. Whitethorn Games handles publishing, and the title reached the store on December 15, 2020.

The game's own page lists 'open world' next to 'casual' and 'simulation', an odd pairing for a café — and one that gives the design away: there is no closed corridor, the whole neighborhood is open to decorate and to visit. That same page ticks Windows, iOS, Mac OS and Android, the mark of a game meant to fit on a desk as readily as in a pocket.

With no published verdict to consult, the decision rests on the storefront itself: the screenshots and the playable trailer the store provides show the game running, and that is where the images chosen for this article come from.

Who comes in to tidy up, and who will not last

Anyone who likes simulation without a stopwatch, who enjoys dressing a set and watching a space fill out little by little, finds exactly that here: café, decoration and animals, with no crisis to solve along the way. Anyone after a defined objective, story progression or a challenge of any kind will run straight into their absence — the casual and simulation labels make no secret of it, they say so upfront. The café changes only through the hands of whoever sits down to arrange every corner of it.