Cat games are almost a genre of their own these days, with the likes of Cat Quest, Cat Café, and Stray all becoming fan favorites in recent years. This comes as no surprise, either; felines are familiar–they’re curious, they’re mischievous, and they’re cute. They’re just like little babies. What’s not to love?
Indie studio Good Story Guild recognizes the appeal of these cuddly critters and has decided that the cat would make for the perfect companion for their work sim with a story focused twist, Cat Secretary.
The story in Cat Secretary focuses on the family friendly DOX company, a Disney-esque media empire that at one time produced the charming Goober animated shorts and sought to appeal to families with wholesome content. However, as the company has grown in size, and their shareholders have become more demanding, all of the magic that once inhabited the DOX brand has been sucked out in favor of earning the almighty dollar. For this reason, DOX is slowly laying off all of their human staff and replacing them with obedient robots.
It’s in the midst of this new hiring cycle that a cat is employed to be the office secretary. Not quite a human, but definitely not a robot, your distinction as an outlier causes friction between the disgruntled human workers and the compliant machines. Nevertheless, it’s your duty to ensure the office is in tip-top shape, that the staff’s morale is high, or else the DOX brand and all of the magic it once possessed will be lost forever.
The developers behind Cat Secretary all come from a writing background, and it was their primary goal to push an intriguing story at the forefront of the work sim, which can oftentimes be a tedious genre.
The core of the story is in its pro-human story, challenging the notion that the creativity and imperfections of human nature is contrary to maximizing profit. It’s an issue that many are facing in the real world today, with AI being used to replace artists of all forms, or machines automating more monotonous tasks. Doing this certainly can satisfy the stockholders and save coin in the long run, but just with the fictitious DOX organization, the magic of human creativity may be the lifeblood that keeps any business afloat.
The actual gameplay of Cat Secretary involves a mix of short tasks and exploring your office space for collectibles, clues, and other things of interest.
Each day, you are able to complete up to two office jobs that can possibly boost the morale of the staff. For instance, one task involves you connecting the router to the internet, and to do this you must complete a Simon Says-like game to complete. Another assignment is to make coffee, and so you must open up the coffee maker, gently pour in the coffee grounds, then pour in the water, without making a mess. Each of these games present a fun little challenge while still immulating the tedium of working in an office.
I will say, not all of the minigames were very intuitive. Towards the end of the demo, I needed to send a fax, but could not get a grasp for how the controls properly worked. Part of this is likely due to the use of an Xbox controller while being presented with keyboard button prompts.
As the game progresses, many more tasks will become available to you, and choosing which two to complete in any given day is part of the challenge. To help you decide, you can eavesdrop on your coworkers to see what they would most appreciate getting done, as well as snoop through company emails and other documents to determine what may earn the company the most profits.
Exploration of your office space also insists on you being your most cat-like self: climb atop furniture, knock things off of counters, collect hidden balls of yarn strewn across the building, all of these things will be needed to get the best information and make DOX succeed.
Good Story Games is a team of many talents and ambitions with backgrounds in screenwriting and acting. In the past, they have created various independent projects such as audio shows. As a company, they want to establish their foothold as a clearing house of good stories, and they view video games as a unique way to tell a story which can be invaluable in expressing a certain idea to the audience.
While still early in development, be sure to WISHLIST Cat Secretary on Steam to support their journey to completion.
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