The artist looks nonplussed as we knock over the paint pots in his back yard and stride nonchalantly T across the canvas, leaving a multicoloured trail of pawprints, before – just to rub it in – nuzzling into his legs so he can’t possibly get mad at us. The builder? Well, we can fully understand his exasperation as we trot across his freshly laid cement, but we simply don’t care. The pre-release comparisons to Stray are as perfectly understandable as they are wrongheaded: Little Kitty, Big City is not a thirdperson action adventure whose protagonist just so happens to be feline, but a game in which you fully inhabit the role of a loveable, casually malevolent cat.
Your long-term goal is a straightforward one: to get back home. Your short-term aim is similarly simple: to ensure you’ve got sufficient energy for the climb (by filling up on protein-rich fish). But as you explore this Japanese-inspired urban space – just a few blocks, but in places it’s as tall as it’s wide – you’ll constantly find distractions. Small birds with dazzling blue plumage have a pleasing habit of landing close by, daring you to creep slowly up to them unnoticed before pouncing, the arc of your leap traced in almost ludicrously elongated slo-mo as you pin them down and steal a feather.
Footballs wait to be dribbled into open goals; tiny gaps in the base of walls invite you to squeeze yourself through, a reminder that cats can be as graceless as graceful; plant pots line your routes up to higher ground, all but demanding you squeeze either trigger as you pass to swat them down to the floor. Cardboard boxes and bins beckon you to dive inside. The shiny objects that spill out as you waggle the stick to rummage through the junk can be traded with a crow for hats, but the appeal
