PawPrint

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"PawPrint" is a rather unusual, and I dare say almost horrible (and probably at least in part asset flipped) activity set to simulate various cat owning experiences marketed to people who lost their cats. This is ridiculously insenstive to say the least... are you suffering grief? Play this asset flip! Apalling isn't a good enough word. It's horrid.

According to the developer, PawPrint is a free-to-play simulation game with idler and RPG elements, focused on virtual cats. Players create a cat, often meant to represent one they've lost. Activities include running to earn coins, buying items like food, customizing the cat, and journaling. The experience is basic and currently only available in Chinese.

Tone deaf developers aside, this activity set doesn't replicate the joyful experience of finding out what your cat used for a toilet or where they threw up, which bit of furniture or potted plant they destroyed today, or how much vet bills cost. Very unrealistic.

There's no English translation for the game, but that's okay. The language of bad games is universal.

The game graphics look better than you might expect, but that's just because it looks like some or all of them are "borrowed" from asset stores or wherever. Gamers can tell... and it comes across as insincere.

There's also the old adage that those who lack the budget and talent to make their own game assets usually lack the budget and talent to do the rest of the job of game development properly, too.

This is "free" enough, at least you won't be expected to spend any more money after you download this, but just because something is free doesn't mean it's good.

Despite having no up-front cost, this failed to appeal to the 120 million+ gamers on Steam. SteamDB showed the game peaked at only 3 concurrent players... this is a dismal public reception. This was so bad they couldn't even give it away.

Bearing in mind that free games don't add +1 to your game collector count, should you bother adding this to your library and downloading it?

Not this time. This isn't worth downloading. While this won't cost you any money, you get what you pay for, and sometimes, even when the game is free, it's still not enough.