The Meowfficer

Alright there is a lot to unpack here so forgive the bullet points and essay nature of this but this game is not anything it is trying to be. The story makes no sense/the progression is very weird as well as some narrative choices. The combat is unnecessarily difficult and frustrating. And on top of everything, this game takes heavy inspiration, whether intentional or not, from real world examples causing it to have a very racist undertone. But lets get into it shall we.... [b]The Game Itself:[/b] The game itself portrays you as a cat who is a police officer, hence, a meowfficer. You work for the police force in the cat town and the main conflict in the game is with the dogs who live in the dogtown. I forgot the names of the cities/towns but its unnecessary. Most of the game is RPG like: you walk around town and the office and can talk to people (I'll get into this more later but you really can't talk with people). Then of course there are required story moments and cutscenes that further the game along. The other part of the game is a 2D shooter set in a 3Dish space. [b]Gameplay Issues:[/b] While the mini game that I am going to call the "shooter parts" of the game, are fun in theory but in actuality they are really unbalanced and frustrating. How short and how the narrative of the game is presented, as well as the visuals, there is truly no reason for the gameplay to be this hard and frustrating. The battle against Snert took me 20 minutes. So lets go into some of the issues. - You only have 2HP (Snert has 5) - Nearly impossible to understand what you can and can't hide behind - Snert and all the enemies for that matter have auto aim and you do not - Because they have auto aim they can snipe you from off screen without you being able to do anything - Snert also has grenades that he can throw to you across the map - It is not clear that the fire would hurt - Snert is't hurt by his own grenades This is also outside of all of the bugs and clipping issues in the game but honestly I don't want to get into that in this review because those can get fixed. There is a larger issue about the game... The narrative... [b]The Narrative:[/b] So as I said before you play as a cat who works for the cat police force and you are going after the dogs. The thing is the dogs don't have a police force or military but instead are in a gang. Actually the dogs can't join the police or military in this world. Hmmm.... Alright... So the dogs are unable to join the police or military but are being persecuted by the cats.... And they are in an illegal gang because that is their only form of resistance as well as safety for their community. I'm not sure about you but that feels eerily similar to how true gangs and gang culture operate in America. Again I can't say that the developers were directly sourcing it from there, but there is a connection there, intentional or not. But lets go into some of the other issues. - The police are known for torturing dogs to death - You are given a stun gun in the beginning but it works the same as a gun in the game? - You then later in the game get a real gun??? - The cats all have assault rifles and the dogs all have pistols In full honesty I got The "Peacemaker" ending and I do not have it in me to play this again to get a new ending (mostly because the Snert battle is so desperately in need of a fix). So I can not speak on how the other endings fair but it seems if there are more than 1 ending, there is one where you can not be a peacemaker and continue to have the conflict between the cats and dogs in which they describe it as a "war". I heard that there was a possibility for 9/11 to occur in the game but I can't say if that actually happens. But truly I do not think I need to spell out for you that if there was a 9/11 caused by the dogs to the cats what that says about the game and what agenda it is trying to push...... [b]Closing thoughts:[/b] I actually want to say that I spoke with the lead game designer and head of this game, Ethan, before this game came out to warn him of the undertones of the game, and whether he meant to or not, is making a game very heavily based off real world applications of racism in America and using that as its narrative. He listened to my concerns and asked if he could send me the final version of the game before they released it to give my feedback on the whole game and I said I would but said that there a lot of better people who could give better feedback about handling such a heavy and nuanced topic. I do not know if he consulted anyone and I did not get sent the final version of the game before release, which is fine since I assumed the team was caught up in pre-release things as well as I never reached back out to him about it. He mentioned to me that he did appreciate my concerns but was worried about getting the game to release on time while implementing all the changes that needed to be made. I think the biggest issue here is that if you are going to make a game that deals with heavy inspiration form the real world about police violence and brutality, you have to approach the game with the same level of nuance that the topic deserves and I think this game missed that. I think if the game added in this nuance or had narrative choices that explored that nuance then it could work. But as it stands now the game leaves a poor taste in my mouth. I do not think the developers are racist and I do not want to cancel them, but I think the themes in this game could have been explored more carefully. The main point I brung up to Ethan in our conversion was that the themes of this game could reflect poorly onto him and I didn't want that to happen to him. Take this review as you will. I urge you to play the game before having a final idea and say of the game. This is just my experience with the game and my feelings about it. I do not want to turn this into a cancelling of the developers.