Appeasing the Feline Deities
Many religions often have their keen followers paying all kinds of tributes to their chosen deities, ranging from giving material items to saying a simple prayer. In the case of Cat God Ranch, an animal-themed strategic roguelite, you’re going to have to appease the feline Gods with gold to ensure your ranch business thrives.
So, is Cat God Ranch going to be the purr-fect way to spend your precious gaming time, or will there be claws out at what’s on offer here?
The Daily Sacrifice
Cat God Ranch sees you take on the role of a ranch manager, whose main task is that of growing a herd of animals that’s going to bring in lots of money – gold coins to be exact. These coins have to be served up to a Cat God in a bid to keep on their good side, otherwise they’ll ruthlessly shut down your operation. How that unfolds is a tad confusing initially, but I’ll try to explain.
Upon venturing into the Normal Mode, you’ll be presented with a tutorial level going over the essentials. You have a gold coin target to achieve in each stage of a level, which is then split into a set number of days. Every day, the animals in your warehouse are brought out and distributed randomly onto a tiled grid. These animals provide differing amounts of daily offerings and you’ll get the option to recruit at least one additional animal, before starting a new day. Gathering enough gold to offer to the God at the end of each stage is the ultimate aim.
Animal Synergy
Initial impressions would suggest that the concept is strange and perhaps too basic. Whilst it is definitely odd, time soon dispels any thoughts of it being basic as you factor in numerous variables.
The animals possess abilities unique to that particular kind, with a range of positive and negative effects. For example, a gold offering increases for swans when more of them are on the field, a sheep getting automatically sold for a nice profit after a few days, and regular animals replaced by rarer types courtesy of the raccoon dog. On the other hand, roosters become worthless around other roosters, skunks require free plots nearby to avoid a penalty, and eagles feed on nearby birds or rabbits.
This is where the strategy comes into the forefront of proceedings, trying to create the best synergy between whatever is at your disposal. Whether that’s by selecting only animals that benefit each other, or by bringing in some predators to thin the herd and reap extra coins that way, is up to you. A favourite style I stumbled upon involved breeding lots of rabbits and introducing a greedy owl who ate everything adjacent to it, boosting its daily offering tremendously for the rest of the run. There are many different permutations for achieving success though, due to other factors.
Godly Blessings and Permanent Upgrades
The Cat Gods themselves can bestow blessings to gain an extra animal every so often, provide protection to a sole animal to prevent anything from expelling them, and even alter the value of an ability. On top of that, there are toys to bring into the level to increase predation frequency, give free refreshes for animal selection choices, and enhance terrain boosts. That’s right, even the tile terrain matters and should suit the animals you covet the most. Throw in a raft of species-related talents and intriguing items that can be bought in the in-game shop using a tinned food currency, and your options are vast.
Even though the amount of unlockable items, Cat Gods, and such, are pretty impressive, it’s actually the sheer volume of animals that makes the difference. Through level progression and general play, over 150 types are awaiting you, featuring birds, ocean creatures, insects, and dinosaurs. The dinosaurs are very cool, with giant animals taking up more tiles and the opportunity to harvest fossils for bonus rewards.
All of the aforementioned variables really entice you to stick at it and complete the increasingly tough levels. Failing is quite likely, but the time in which you can finish a run is maybe fifteen minutes, so a losing effort isn’t the end of the world. You can easily dip in and out of Cat God Ranch for hours with what’s on offer in Normal Mode. But what about beyond that?
Adventure and Challenge
Well, the Adventure Mode is mildly fascinating. Once again there are multiple difficulty modifiers in place across the different types of maps, however that’s not the reason to check it out. The real draw is witnessing the Cat Gods entering the field in turn, trying to disrupt your efforts with a range of abilities they possess. Earning the necessary coins for each will make them leave, with a new one replacing it and asking for a higher total offering, until you satisfy every single one.
As for the Challenge Mode, it’s far less enticing due to it essentially being an endless-style setup. There are modifiers attached to the challenges, but it’s not very exciting and doesn’t particularly bring anything new or interesting to the table. So that’s a bit of a disappointment, which leads me onto a slight irritation regarding the overall gameplay.
Luck and Logic
Despite the short and swift turnarounds for run-throughs making Cat God Ranch fairly addictive, the luck element is occasionally detrimental to the experience. Not knowing which animals are going to be offered to you at the end of each day is one thing, but the sheer random nature in place for them entering the field of play is something you cannot account for. Even those emerging might get positioned in spots that aren’t beneficial to them or other animals nearby. The amount of times where an animal with a high coin output stays inside the warehouse, leaving you short of the target, is frustrating.
Furthermore, it’s often unclear as to what the abilities, the Cat God blessings, items, toys, and tiles, actually do. Sure, after a handful of uses it might become more obvious to you, but the explanations could be better. There aren’t many things worse than self-sabotage because you recruited useless – in certain contexts – animals and triggered a blessing that didn’t work as expected.
From a design perspective, the cartoon-like visuals for the animals are a little goofy sometimes and that really fits in with the tone of everything going on. The Cat Gods look good too because they all have a rather unique style that actually suits the blessings attached to them.
An Addictive Feline Roguelite
All in all, Cat God Ranch is a weird concept, but it works thanks to the roguelite elements conjuring up a ton of variety. The vast amount of variables keeps everything fresh for hours and the strategic approaches you can adopt are quite fascinating. Luck plays a big part in success unfortunately and it may take a while to figure out what the abilities do.
That said, Cat God Ranch is good fun regardless and certainly one to consider!
Important Links
Ready to Tame Dinosaurs and Alpaca Herds in Cat God Ranch on Xbox, Play Anywhere & More? – https://www.thexboxhub.com/ready-to-tame-dinosaurs-and-alpaca-herds-in-cat-god-ranch-on-xbox-play-anywhere-more/
Buy Cat God Ranch from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-gb/games/store/Cat-God-Ranch/9PFXS88SW9F4
