Alright.
The Last Cat in the Universe is done and dusted. This is a reasonably addictive incremental game where you play as a space station AI who, after the Earth is destroyed, is tasked with taking care of and providing happiness for the last cat in the universe. Hence the title.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3812332356
I think it is important to know that this is not a happy game by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, it's really a sad game for a couple of reasons. One, I can reconcile myself with. Which is that you watch the cat getting older as you care for it, and the implications of that. The other however, I find myself unable to reconcile with. This could get spoilery if I dive deeply into it, but I'll just leave my thoughts on this part as follows: no responsible pet owner would make the choice the cat's owner in this game made. Period. It kind of angers me to the point where I'm soured on the game despite it mostly being a fun game in and of itself.
The gameplay consists of lite resource management as you, the AI, destroy all the other parts of the space station to find the resources necessary to care for the cat. This is represented by repeatedly farming the station's levels for supplies via lasers, which breaks down everything into manageable component parts which can then be used to help feed and properly maintain the cat and its life.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3812631305
Parallel to this, you will also be seeking answers to what actually happened to humanity, Earth, and why the cat has been left in your care. As you dive more deeply into the station, audio logs and music will be found that both shed light on the story and provide some comfort and happiness for the cat.
The incremental part comes into play as far as how you upgrade your laser(s) and resource collecting abilities. Station levels are stacked on top of each other. So, level one, then level two, etc... Initially, you can clear one level at a time, and your goal is to get all the way through all the Station's numerous levels. However, you also have a timer each time you attempt this, so you can only delve so deep before your timer runs out, and this factors into your incremental upgrading as well.
The game significantly bogs down once you get to about level fifteen and through level thirty. In order to upgrade your stuff enough to get deeper than that, you require a specific resource which is randomly generated. You might end up with twenty runs where you only are able to find maybe thirty pieces of this resource. You require many many hundreds of it though in order to really be able to advance past this section. As a result, you'll spend roughly half of your time in this game bogged down in this block of levels trying to get enough of that resource to upgrade enough to be able to dig deeper. Which does kill the fun for a while IMO. Once you get past there, everything speeds up exponentially, but holy hell was that middle section of the game unfun.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3814397731
Eventually, you unlock the entire story and the final song, at which point, you're treated to an ending that I'd argue doesn't respect your time in the game and also doesn't respect the two characters you've come to know. What it did do, for me at least, was crystallize in my mind just how much I kind of despised the story. Which is a shame because you're really doing everything you can do for this cat, but the story doesn't respect that IMO. It tries to end on a feel-good note about bringing peace to the cat, but what about all those intervening years where it was basically living alone with an AI? I didn't appreciate it.
Do I recommend this game? Not unless you kind of want to feel sad and maybe a bit angry after playing it, lol. Obviously, a lot of people who played this have glossed over the terrible pet ownership aspect and the weak weak weak attempt to handwave this away with terrible story logic, but I just can't. If you don't think something like that will bother you though, then there is a fun game to be had here (if you can stomach the significant pacing issue at the midway point of the game, anyway).
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