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Ever wondered how it’d feel to work on a farm run by a feline deity that, shockingly, doesn’t want world domination? Well, Cat God Ranch is here to answer that question. From CrazyPotato Studios and originally released on PC, this is a charming little game with some cute ideas but is bogged down by a glaring difficulty problem that hurts an otherwise enjoyable title.
But before we go to the land of the negatives, let's stay in the realm of the positives cause there are some things I did enjoy about the game. The game’s artstyle, for instance, is both cute and hilarious at the same time, with all the animals having these derpy expressions with crazy eyes that makes it look like they ingested all the sugar in the world and then some. The border collie might be my favorite out of the bunch, personally, as it has this perpetual ‘I’m Just Happy To Be Here’ look to it. The game itself is also very simple to pick up and play and I can see younger games having some fun with it. The general gist of the game is that you work for the Cat God running their farm and, after so many days have passed, offer tribute in the form of gold coins. In return, you get to keep your job, as well as earn Cat Food cans, which can be traded at the store between days for special land squares or Prop Cards, essentially powerups, to help you during that particular session with obtaining more gold. After each stage, you also unlock new deities that can help you achieve your goal, as well as permanent power ups to aid you during a stage. In order to earn gold coins, you raise animals, with each one offering unique buffs and quarks to help maximize your gold input. To give some examples; Some animals can grow into different breeds, others may lay eggs, and others may just straight up eat the others, all of which offer varying amounts of gold. Essentially, if you have the right selection of animals, you can be swimming in more gold than Scrooge McDuck by the end of a turn. Very easy to understand and, like I said, very simple to pick up and play. I also really liked the sound effects used, with each one being distinct from each other and also just being silly to listen to, though the music was just OK and nothing too memorable. I will point out that the control scheme is a bit odd, at least to me. It’s not broken or poorly conceived in any way, it’s just that if you’re used to using the D-pad to move around in menus to select something, you don’t have that option here. Instead, the D-pad acts as more of an ‘Explanation’ tool, highlighting parts of the menu and such to explain what said thing is, while the controls sticks are used to choose and select. But, otherwise, the controls are fine, it was just that part that bugged me.
Despite all those positives, I have to admit I’m not a fan of the difficulty and it’s honestly the biggest complaint I have with Cat God Ranch. The game starts out relatively easy enough and continues to be so for, about, two stages. Then, out of the blue, there is a massive difficulty spike and the game goes from being fun to very frustrating. The issue is the amount of coins you need to appease the cat god is sometimes a bit too high to where, unless RNG is on your side and you got some good animals and you are managing them well, you’ll be restarting that entire stage multiple times. It gets worse when the game throws in animals that prevent you from earning the full amount of coins and these animals you can’t get rid of until the timer on them is done. While, yes, some of the deities you can earn do help slightly, like one allowing you to choose multiple animals when you start, in the end it’s all up to RNG if you’re able to offer the right amount of gold and, no, you can’t bargain with them to give you one extra day; It’s either pay now or you’re fired. It’s really a shame about the difficulty being wildly inconsistent as I was really enjoying the game for the most part up until the difficulty spiked and, frankly, I went from enjoying it to getting frustrated by it. I know I harp on difficulty a lot but I stand by what I always said: If a game can’t balance its difficulty well, then gamers aren’t going to enjoy the title. Cat God Ranch is such a title where, while it has some nice ideas, its difficulty does end up being a major sour point which, in turn, hurts an otherwise fun title.
I’d say Cat God Ranch is a relatively fun little game that I can see being a nice time waster for many but the difficulty does end up hurting it. While I did genuinely have a good time playing the game for a while and I would recommend it to someone wanting a simple game to pick up when they’re bored with camo grinding in Black Ops 7. I’d honestly say wait for a sale on this title.
