Critter Cove
A deep, open world life sim and town building game set in a cozy post-apocalyptic paradise. Restore an old town, sail across a mysterious archipelago. Hunt for relics and farm, fish & craft everything you need. Can you help turn Critter Cove into a thriving tourist town once again?
Critter Cove is a relaxing, cozy and singleplayer game
developed and published by Gentleman Rat Studios.
Released on September 10th 2024 is available only on Windows
in 8 languages: English, Japanese, Simplified Chinese, French, Portuguese - Brazil, Russian, German and Spanish - Spain.
It has received 1,122 reviews of which 1,079 were positive and 43 were negative resulting in an impressive rating of 9.1 out of 10. 😍
The game is currently priced at 17.15€ on Steam and has a 30% discount.
The Steam community has classified Critter Cove into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: Intel Core i3-2100 | AMD FX-6300
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX760+ or AMD Radeon 7950+ equivalent with a minimum 4GB of VRAM
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 20 GB available space
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Critter Crossing - Early Access Review First things first: I dont really have a lot of experience with Animal Crossing. I played New Horizons during COVID (like a lot of others) and I kinda liked it. But I was also told by my girlfriend that the previous titles had been better. So when I heard that Critter Cove was a better version of New Horizons with lots of QoL I got very curious. I downloaded the demo and after a couple of hours I uninstalled it and instantly bought the game! The short version: I love and highly recommend it! I think it is way more than "just an Animal Crossing clone". It has a lot of cool aspects and ideas. And for an early access title in that stage it has a ton to offer. So let me go over some stuff: After creating a new charakter with a surprising amount of customisation (you can be anything from human, dog to a squid person or something in between) the game begins. You start out as a new resident of the run down town of Critter Cove. Tom...I mean Renard the absolutely trust worthy and definitely not greedy owner of the general store tasks you with finding a home(that you can also decorate) for yourself and then get the town back running! The game offers a lot of exploration. Early on you get a quest to craft a small ship that you use to visit islands. There you can find materials, shipwrecks and stranded Critters that you can recruit for your lovely town. In between those exploration sessions you run your island. You have a workshop that you can put crafting stations in, you get to do some simplified farming, you can fulfill requests for your residents and you can also assign them jobs. What kind of jobs? In restoring the town you attract visitors. These come to your island to relax, have a good time and spent some money. You can buy blueprints from a vendor to restore different locations in your town. A cafe, a tavern, a clothing store, backery etc. Since you cant do everything by yourself you have to assign some of your residents to these jobs! On occasion you have to provide them with goods to sell aswell. It is a simple but nice system to generate more money and make your town feel more alive. In terms of visuals and sound it's all very lovely. The game looks bright and colorful and the Critters look fun and distinct. They also have interesting personalities and - in AC like fashion - also catchphrases. They also sound similar to AC the way the talk. And the soundtrack is lovely aswell. I catch myself humming the main town theme every now and then. When it comes to controls I think there is some room for improvement. It is a little janky and awkward at times. But nothing that ever breaks the fun. Crafting is fine aswell. You have a good amount of QoL here. No tool durability, you have chests that you can access from anywhere and you can batch craft most items. All very lovely. Since this is early access the game does have some bugs and glitches. There are some objects that are just textures that you fall through, I had a few times where items dissapeared from my inventory and one time I accidentally placed a remote bomb in my workshop. It didnt go off... It did nothing actually and I couldnt remove it. I guess it just lives there now... (Update: After a few game restarts it seems to have dissapeared) Anyway. Even with some of the bugs and glitches I havent encountered anything gamebreaking. Note: I do have some wishes towards the devs. And since I am only 15 hours in and obviously havent seen all the game has to offer I wanna apologies if some of those are already in the game. - house expansion and maybe even room size/layout customization - being able to visit other Critters homes - town/island expansion - pets - even more islands to visit!!! (because it is so much fun and gives me Zelda: The Wind Waker vibes) - seasonal events like Christmas or Halloween Verdict: This game is absolutely fantastic! It is very cozy, relaxing and fun to play. You can do everything at your own pace. It has a lot of QoL that some fully released crafting games dont even have. It is already so, so, so good and I am exited for what is to come! So good job dear devs! :) With the recent years and all the AAA game messes we've had it becomes increasingly more difficult for me to recommend games at full price. This one I do! It is of course in early access. So if things drastically change I will update my review. But so far I wholeheartedly recommend this game! If you've made it this far then thank you for reading! I hope you have a pleasant day! Cheers!
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If you like a cozy experience, this game does deliver a lot. A lot of people compare it to Animal Crossing, and frankly I could say that this is so much more than that. First off is the character customization. The degree of freedom this game gives in customizing your character is big. It would generally be enough if the customization allows you to change gender, skin color, hair, eye color; it's great if it allows you to be a non-human species. However the customization here takes it even further. You're not limited by species types; you're not even given a base to work with. Want to be silly and play a human with a cat head and a human body? Sure. Want to do the other way around? Why not? Want to be full anthropomorphic animal hybrid? Sure. You can even be a TV head for all intents and purposes. Next off is the worldscape. You don't get to "build" your home from scratch, rather you choose from a variety of different broken houses that just needs some elbow grease to fix. From there, you can craft decorations and furniture items. These can go into your home, and I mean CAN. You can on the other hand place them around the worldspace (the island) as you want. Want to be silly and put a bed on top of the peak? If it's flat enough, you can do that. The island is yours to decorate at your leisure. Now I mentioned broken houses, and there's more to it. You see, the premise is you're building up an island, and need to invite people to your island. You can go about and find castaways on other islands and, through a small quest, can invite them to your island at your leisure. After some interactions, they'll think about real estate and putting permanent roots down. You then help them with materials and they'll build up the house themselves and move right in. The critters aren't just for decoration. You can interact with them as you want, and sometimes they'll wave at you and have requests. Fulfilling them does net you some loot, and some affinity points as well. These critters can also be assigned to commercial buildings around the island (which you'll need to build up), and they'll function as staff there. Though some critters like working in some places than others, and there's generally a downside for putting the wrong critter in the wrong job. Critters do have personalities to them. Not all of them a generally friendly. I won't spoil it, but they've got their quirks but if you butter up to them, they'll thaw out. Now I talked about castaways and getting them from other islands, but how do you get to them? Later on you can get to them by boat, and you pilot that boat. There's no fixed path going from your island to the next; the sea is your playground. And when I mean the sea is your playground, I mean literally. You can dive right into it and go scavenge for resources in the depths. You'll at first need to closely monitor your oxygen, and be careful of not going to down in the water to avoid the chills, otherwise you'll take damage to your health. If you lose your health, you pass out and reawaken on the surface, on the same day with not much time having passed, though with a debuff to you total health and stamina. Stamina. You need it to disassemble most junk strewn across the islands and ocean. To recover stamina, you can rest or take something to eat or drink. One big thing to note is that there's no penalty for not sleeping, nor is there something like a curfew system. You can be active the whole day and night without any problems. Gardening is generally the way to get things to recover stamina. Sure you can eat things raw, but generally cooked food will recover stamina or health, or both, better than eating something raw...but the game won't stop you. Food is classified according to some groups, like meat (yes, you can GROW meat. The vegan dream), vegetables and other groups. Now, you're building up an island, and with commercial buildings? Is it just for you? No of course not. That'll be too lavish. Your island can be the perfect tropical paradise to draw in tourists to visit, and spend their cash in. The more you decorate, the more commercial stuff like kiosks you put in (and stock mind you), the more tourists are inclined to do various activities and pay you for your services. You may even spot a prospecting tourist that you might want to become a resident of your island and *ahem* hope they become a castaway by forces beyond our control. There's a lot more to this, especially since the devs are listening and are following their own roadmap. At the time of this review, they've dropped a big update that included things like robot helpers to help gather resources. Would I recommend it? If you're looking for a nice chill and cozy experience. Yes. This game is for you.
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Quick review on Critter Cove after playing for 4 hours. If I had to compare it to another game I would say it’s a good mix of animal crossing, Dinkum and My time at Sandrock. I will say it has things that make it so DIFFERENT compared to those. Here are some things I love about it 🌊 no penalty for not sleeping! Take naps, eat and explore to your hearts content! (Game isn’t in real time like ACNH) the days don’t go by too fast 🌊 WATER- there is so much emphasis on swimming, diving for loot and resources, fish, drive your boat. It looks so beautiful and I feel so immersed while diving. 🌊 character creation is really customizable in this game and you can have fun with your look! 🌊 exploration- your boat takes you everywhere, find new tourists to move in and new places to discover. Full release is supposed to have at least 10 islands to find and explore. 🌊 STORAGE this is a huge one because it’s a common gripe of mine with crafting games, your storage can be accessed anywhere on the island from any chest and any crafting items needed will automatically be pulled. 🌊 crafting- most items in game have to be deconstructed multiple times in order to learn the crafting recipe. 🌊 not only do you have your house to decorate and build up but also the entire island! Many hours can be put into this game and I’m so pleased with my purchase. After playing for over 30 hours I can definitely say this is well worth your money! 🤎
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Critter Cove is scratching itches I didn't even know I had! While it's easy to compare CC to Animal Crossing - there are similarities, for sure - Gentleman Rat is doing a great job making CC very much its own thing. The character creator is the immediate star of the show. The Critter types are all great, but the customization is insane! Hair, ears, hands, feet, tails, wings, weight, height, and more - all up to you! The base patterns have good color designs, but you're not locked into those at all. Go wild and make you're Critter uniquely you! The day/night cycle of the game not being tied to real-world time sets them apart, allowing the player to focus on things they like. Want to do a lot of farming? Farm, sleep, wake, repeat! Want more tourist income? Host, sleep, sleep, sleep, host! Want to focus on adding more castaways to your island? Check the weather report and sleep until the storms hit! The crafting system is quite well thought out. Farm or collect the base materials, then use those to make other parts, which then get turned into the final product. Recipes are learned both through the story quests and via exploring. Want to learn how to make more stuff? Get out there and find it! Now, the game is in Early Access, so there are going to be bugs. Some of them have stopped players from finishing certain quests, but the devs have been incredible responsive about handling these issues. The Discord is always busy, and the devs are actively participating. If you're into "cozy" games, don't mind the occasional bug (c'mon, it IS early access), and want to try something different, give Critter Cove a shot!
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Critter Cove has the charm and personality of the earlier Animal Crossing games with all the QoL lacking in new horizons - all while still feeling wholly and completely its own and not like an AC rip. You start the game with an impressively robust character creator, ranging from human to mythical creature and everything in between. Human, cat, dog, bear, deer, reptile, sea creature, robot- there seem to be near infinite possibilities, with even more customization options for each silhouette such as ears, horns, tails, etc. Don't worry if you can't decide, there is a mirror unlock in game that lets you change your character in the shop or at home. :) The game then progresses to your arrival on Critter Cove, where you are tasked with helping to restore the post-apocalyptic town and entice tourists to visit and rescue shipwrecked critters to live on the island. Salvaging/breaking down the ruins around the archipelago nets both materials and unlocks crafting trees for things like equipment, machinery, furniture, island decor, and more. Slowly but surely you help restore houses for residents and buildings/businesses on the island. As you travel around the archipelago you encounter shipwrecked Critters- rescue and return them to Critter Cove, and they'll move into your island, eventually asking you to help them restore one of the old homes in the town and can even be hired to run the businesses. Tourists start to visit every so often, earning you gold as they visit the attractions on your island. The tourists and residents alike have SO much personality- they vary in their interests, dialogue, and niceness- so be prepared for some sass! The gameplay loop in this game is incredibly satisfying, and the mechanics are designed with QoL in mind. Tools don't break, seamless day/night with no forced sleep or punitive mechanics for not going to bed/being tired (I *hate* punitive mechanics like that, so it's a big one for me), reasonable stamina usage with easy ways to replenish, either through abundantly available food or sleeping for different lengths of time (love being able to take a nap and not being forced to end a day just to replenish stamina), shared inventory across storage chests, crafting from your storage chest and not just from your on-hand inventory, and more. This game really removes a lot of the tedium of things like crafting and inventory management so you can focus on the fun parts of the game- exploring, resource gathering, crafting, and interacting with the characters. Keep in mind, this is an EA! The game is not complete, nor is it perfect. There are still some bugs, mechanics may change, and there is an impressively robust roadmap of what's to come in their subsequent updates. The Gentleman Ran team is incredibly responsive across their channels (I use discord) and really care about letting the community guide provide feedback into game and QoL mechanics. Bugs are identified and being resolved quickly, and I am confident that this is an EA that's worth the money. If you're not sure- the demo is a fantastic example of what you can expect from the game, and you can roll your demo progress into the game if you end up buying. Needless to say, I HIGHLY recommend- you will not regret trying this game!
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 28 November 2024 00:54 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 23 December 2024 11:06 |
| Steam price | 23 December 2024 12:49 |
| Steam reviews | 23 December 2024 14:00 |
Online players
151
Developer
Gentleman Rat Studios
Publisher
Gentleman Rat Studios
Release
10 Sep 2024
Platforms