Cities aren’t really built to animal scale, but then again neither does it seem like forests would be but the critters get by just fine. Life tends to adapt to its niche, and some species are good enough to even make the niche adapt to it. Cats are one of the top species at making the human world conform to its needs, but even so the city is no place for a naive little kitty to wander around unsupervised. Thankfully the town in Little Kitty, Big City is a friendly place with more than a touch of cartoon physics in its makeup, so when a small black cat falls out of a highrise window it can grab onto a passing bird to make the descent to ground level with barely a hair out of place. Getting back home, though, is going to be a bit more troublesome than falling out of it.
The demo for Little Kitty, Big City dropped the other day and it’s a super-cute adventure through a sunny, friendly town featuring a mischievous black cat who would certainly like to get home, but also there are distractions in the world and a lot to learn. The demo takes place over a small section of town with the rest gated off by walls and impassable puddles, and it’s just enough to get a good sense of tone plus give a workout to the nameless kitty’s starting abilities. Jump is either a quick tap of the button or held down for precise aiming, with paw prints showing the landing area, while the triggers swipe with the left and right paws, respectively. The stealth button lets you sneak up on unsuspecting birds for a pounce before letting them go, causing them to leave a collectible feather behind, and the same button also doubles for crawling under tight spaces. Other abilities like being able to climb vines (shown in the year-old trailer below) will presumably come along later, but there are a few hats to collect kicking around the neighborhood so you can do a little dress-up.
The basic flow of the game is playful exploration/adventure, with goals popping up when you discover a new toy to play with or meet a new character. Hop into a trash can and get a mini-quest to do it to ten of them, or a crow wants a nice pile of “shinies” that you can find scattered all over the place. There’s not a lot of platforming in the demo but the game architecture shows there’s going to be plenty later, letting the kitty climb up higher than is safe and swat flower pots onto the streets below. Home is way up back in a high-rise apartment and it’s not going to be easy to get there, especially with all the distracting fun that can be had in the streets below. It might take a bit to get back into the most likely worried arms of its owners, but first there’s a whole new world to play with in the exciting streets below.
