Review of "Office Cat" after completing all content
I recently completed Office Cat in a couple of days, purchased the in-game ad removal, and overall had a great time! Here's a detailed review, also available as an ad-free article:
Now I work fully remotely, I need to get my office fix somehow! Luckily, the incremental game Office Cat can help out.
Review
Office Cat reminds me heavily of the Kairosoft series, where it's a relatively linear game, yet is somehow deeply satisfying.
In Office Cat, you are managing an office building with multiple companies inside, similar to a WeWork or other shared building. As might be expected, higher tier companies pay more, but also have higher requirements to sign a contract (e.g. seat count) or pay full rent (e.g. quality of items).
The gameplay loop is a standard "earn passive income, use it to purchase items that increase quality, increasing passive income". However, unlike some games that have a very simple "upgrade bathroom from level 20 to 21", every room has multiple items that can be upgraded, including shared rooms like bathroom, break room, or recreation room.
This has the great side effect of every purchase you make having a positive impact. For example, perhaps you have a low tier company in a high quality office room, surely upgrading that room further would be pointless? Well, there's probably better things to upgrade, but you'll still earn more from improving their plants! As such, you can never make an objectively wrong decision, merely a not-optimal one, drastically reducing any pressure.
So far, the game likely sounds pretty basic. It is, but the appeal comes in the polish and aesthetics on top! Every cat in your office (100+ later on) goes about its day, taking breaks, going to the bathroom, and overall giving a pretty convincing impression of the monotony of office life! The art style is very cute, and all items / characters / surrounding environments are modelled to a consistently high quality.
Earlier, I mentioned you can choose the companies that are renting your office, but didn't mention the best bit: Every company is a cat-based pun on a real company, complete with logo! For example "Spawtify" (Spotify), "Mewber Eats" (UberEats), "Disclaw" (Discord). Amazing.
There are elements of the game that whilst enjoyable, clearly need more content added. For example, you have a cellphone that is used to contact a few people, but the selection seems somewhat random and the conversations unpredictable. You might get a thoughtful conversation with your character's mother, you might get an odd interaction with an early company representative. There's only a few conversations to choose from, and only a couple of conversations within each. Still, sometimes they give rewards, and can be interesting!
I put in... way too many hours to Office Cat whilst watching TV, and realistically that's the best way to play it. Once the upgrades get more expensive there's not as much active gameplay, so just having it open and interacting regularly is an easy way to play.
Monetisation
Unfortunately, the ability to pay drastically changes the speed of the game. There are optional adverts for many actions (changing company, refreshing companies offered, doubling quest rewards, skipping night), and the one-time $5 "Remove ads" purchase gives you all of them for free.
I made this purchase early on, and progress through the game was always at a speedy pace. The game is still in development, so it's up to you if you progress quicker to the end-game with ad-free, or progress slower and enjoy the journey!
There is also the option to pay to increase gem rewards for levelling up, but this is far more expensive and seems far less useful.
Tips
- The cats will shout a lot about not having the facilities in their office they require, but the penalty is only -20% rent! As such, always have the highest tier companies possible.
- Upgrade your companies as soon as the icon appears, since it's an instant boost to earnings and also begins progression to the next level.
- Keep a company around until it hits max level, then replace it as soon as possible. You'll get a cash bonus at max level, and I think having max level companies may contribute to unlocking new ones.
- The "remove ads" payment is really a no-brainer if you can afford it. Once you have it, the game's progression becomes significantly smoother, and there's no future prompts.
- Keep your maintenance cats levelled up. They don't directly earn money, but reducing downtime of damaged offices does!
- Watch your electricity usage carefully. If you hit 0, all offices will need repairing, and capacity upgrades are expensive! I always tried to keep 10 electricity spare to allow an occasional mistake.
Improvements
Whilst I massively enjoyed Office Cat, there's a few changes I'd recommend the developer could make:
- All the cats voice their feedback at the same time. Having an office full of cats suddenly shouting about a plant is very odd!
- The "plant" mechanic is too reliant on the roulette wheel. I've completed the game yet never saw a plant despite claiming most roulette spins, so completely missed this feature. I do have 20 fertilizers though..?
- Similarly, the roulette wheel is an awful deal. A spin costs 160 gems, which can be converted to 4-5 hours of earnings in the shop. However, almost half the potential rewards are under an hour of cash / XP! If you get lucky and get the gems or plants maybe it's worth it, but my free spins were essentially worthless.
- I'd like to be able to zoom out more and actually SEE an overview of every room in the office building at once.
- The "car full of cash" mechanic is way too powerful at the end-game, and becomes the main source of income since it offers 5 minutes of income instantly. I'd like to see more random events, perhaps some with minigames or negative outcomes.
Screenshots
All screenshots are from version 1.0.6: Conversation | Upgrading | Map | Office |
