As the name suggests, Cat Mail Co. is very much asking you to “run a cozy cat post office”. Cute, right? Undeniably so and that’s a real draw of a game like this. It’s all about snuggling in for some gameplay that wants you to focus on just a few simple tasks. But, as I was soon to discover, running a post office is actually quite hard work. After serving 200 customers in Cat Mail Co., I’m ready to talk about it.
From the offset, Cat Mail Co. throws you into a world of parcels, packages and purring on Cats Island. You’re a cat yourself, your customers are cats and they turn up every single time you ring the sweet little bell situated atop your service desk. At times, you’re required to take in packages, stamp them with their destination, weigh them, and administer more stamps that’ll make sure they reach said destination. Other times, you’re given some instructions about the parcel they’ve come to collect that you need to find and bring back.
Amongst the business of post, I found myself nestled in possibly the coziest work environment I’ve ever seen. There are cat scratch posts, the odd mouse toy and fish heads mounted on plaques on the wall, all in soft, pleasing tones. I may need to sort through the backlog left behind by a disappearing postman, but at least I’m doing it somewhere extraordinarily homey.
But my responsibilities quickly grew. After my first handful of customers, I received the first of many visits from the Captain. Swooping in on his boat, he arrived at the dock ready to drop off, yes, more packages. The Captain arrives twice a day during the game’s perpetual day/night cycle. You’re servicing customers both at night and during the night, but at dusk and dawn, the Captain appears. But, not only was he giving me packages, he was also informing me of his next destination(s) so I can offload packages to him.
Cat Mail Co. is part post office employee, part Tetris player as the boat turns up with different configurations and the shelves where you’re storing everything need some hardcore arranging if you’re going to fit everything on. I’m certainly not skilled at sorting, but I definitely got better as the game went on. It just depends how much you really want to bother. It turns out I could get away with bothering some and also just creating passageways of parcels on the floor that made sense to me.
But, you can knock over packages, damaging them. They can also become damaged when you store them in the wrong place as I learned when I started to unlock extra rooms with important purposes, like keeping your parcel refrigerated or keeping it in the dark. Some parcels are so heavy they must not be stored on top of others. It’s a logistical nightmare, yet I found myself enjoying the challenge even if, at times, it felt a lot less cozy. This damage won’t happen instantly though, so you’ve got a chance to save them. And fortunately, you can repair a few parcels a day, three to be exact.
Fortunately, the post office is abundant with storage space, ranging from little shelves to big warehouse-esque units. Unfortunately, I started throwing the packages in willy-nilly, a decision that would bite me in my furry buttocks later down the line.
As the game progresses, your postal reach grows from destinations like lighthouse-heavy Port Windy to faraway towns like Hazelton. Each place requires a different protocol, a different storage area and, eventually, a trip with the Captain. With the Captain and the customers consistently arriving, I became a busy little cat picking up the work and mess that the last postman left behind. We’re talking mounds of unsorted parcels and letters seeping out of open doors.
These doorways are blocked, but they’re also full of potential and here lies an interesting part of Cat Mail Co. It is a cozy game, absolutely, but it’s also a game that evolves to make sure that as you play, you face complexities that allow you to flex your feline muscles a little further.
These mysterious mountains of post are your way of, quite literally, opening new doors. Like any good puzzle game, I’m acutely aware that if I sort through these mounds, I’ll uncover something delicious. Or, as it turns out, even more complicated. As you level up your postal sorting prowess, sorting the post becomes less of a cozy little job and more like that viral video where the man shouts “IT’S ENOUGH SLICES!”
These new rooms require you to sort your post with a lot more thought, especially at night when your parcels begin to reveal new hidden properties that you won’t have seen during daylight hours. You’ll even unlock a lens to check specific parcels under when the time is right. And all these rooms require your attention as more and more post arrives.
At one point, I worried, I’m drowning in mail. Not literally, thankfully, though I did find myself falling off the dock now and again. Luckily, I’m a cat with more than nine lives so there’s no actual way to harm yourself in Cat Mail Co., even if I gave it a good go.
I’m aware that this is beginning to sound chaotic and on some levels it really did feel like I was making a right royal mess. But what I need to make clear about Cat Mail Co. is that Maracas Studio makes sure of one important feature for any cozy game – there’s no time pressure at all. Time only moves forward once you’ve served a customer. That’s right. They’ll wait as long as you need and so will the Captain (even if they make slight grumbles now and again).
Not needing to rush is the ultimate gift in a cozy game. The only pressure I was feeling was that which I was putting on myself. I’m a people pleaser and it turns out that knows no bounds, even when extending to the feline community. I want everyone to think I’m doing a good job, but if they came into the back rooms of my post office, they’d be mortified.
I also think Maracas Studio has thought about the kind of people that will be playing this game. There’s an oddly good balance straddling the requests you receive from customers which puzzles the brain just right. One moment, I find myself thinking, God that’s going to be really easy to find as they hand me over a full name and last initial. Then next, I’m tutting aggressively when they only tell me it’s going to be a heavy parcel.
About 20 or so customers in, I was concerned how they’d make Cat Mail Co. interesting and, at times, it did feel a little repetitive. But, then something new was added in: a new destination, a new room, a new way of sorting. Even 200 customers in, I’m still unlocking new things.
For a game that appears to just be about post, it’s an impressive offering. At times, I found myself comparing it to Letter Lost, if it was a feline-friendly, softer to look at and easier to play version. There’s no mystery here, just a whole lot of post to sort and a rather lovely environment to do it in. And, if you fancy it, you can even play the game’s 4-player co-op, a clowder of cats sorting post and kicking back with a nice ball of wool.
