Arriving at one of many islands to take over your retired aunt’s calico cat café, meet and make friends with the animals and residents of Heart Village. Complete requests and errands from the villagers to collect various furniture and 21 recipes for your shop! With numerous animals, horses, foxes, cats, dogs, crows, bears and more, have up to 10 animals living with you in your café. Carve out a space and life for yourself on this gorgeous island, and make it your home!

There is a lot to unpack here, so I’ll try to keep it short. 6+ hours to complete, slow-paces and LGBTQ+ friendly yet with no romance options; Calico is purely a pastel slice-of-life and relaxation game. Every piece of furniture and apparel is fully customizable with a huge color wheel with apparel having numerous patterns. The baking minigame is very fun and there is such a huge variety of things to do on the island you can pretty much do whatever you like; with my favorites being relaxing in the hot springs with the capybaras and running the café. The music is a bit repetitive but it’s very enjoyable and in particular I love the NPC designs and dialogue; the game is however, very feminine.

For the cons: as stated before, it’s very feminine. Making a character is supposed to be androgynous but making a male character is fairly difficult due to the body types/outfits; this game is marketed towards women. Another is at the time of this review, cake decorating as shown in the steam store video was removed due an issue and it’s not certain if it will be re-implemented. There is a bugged quest with Kai; you have the option to give her a dog or cat for her to feel more comfortable living alone at the lighthouse, and I chose to get her a dog, but going to bed resets the quest and defaults to giving her a cat instead. Riding horses is fun because of their quick speed, but dismounting them while they are running makes them continue at that speed until they hit a wall or unclimbable area. While this can be hilarious, chasing down a horse zooming across the map is just fun for the first few times it happens.

Overall; it’s a fantastic game. I really enjoyed playing and while I wish there was a bigger display case for pastries and sandwiches you can make, it’s a very fun 6+ hours and it would be interesting if they ever decided to add multiplayer.

TLDR; 6+hrs, LGBTQ+ friendly, a pastel slow-paced slice-of-life game where you run a cat/animal café. 21 recipes and a ton of customization for your character and furniture is available. Very feminine and relaxing.

Arriving at one of many islands to take over your retired aunt’s calico cat café, meet and make friends with the animals and residents of Heart Village. Complete requests and errands from the villagers to collect various furniture and 21 recipes for your shop! With numerous animals, horses, foxes, cats, dogs, crows, bears and more, have up to 10 animals living with you in your café. Carve out a space and life for yourself on this gorgeous island, and make it your home! There is a lot to unpack here, so I’ll try to keep it short. 6+ hours to complete, slow-paces and LGBTQ+ friendly yet with no romance options; Calico is purely a pastel slice-of-life and relaxation game. Every piece of furniture and apparel is fully customizable with a huge color wheel with apparel having numerous patterns. The baking minigame is very fun and there is such a huge variety of things to do on the island you can pretty much do whatever you like; with my favorites being relaxing in the hot springs with the capybaras and running the café. The music is a bit repetitive but it’s very enjoyable and in particular I love the NPC designs and dialogue; the game is however, very feminine. For the cons: as stated before, it’s very feminine. Making a character is supposed to be androgynous but making a male character is fairly difficult due to the body types/outfits; this game is marketed towards women. Another is at the time of this review, cake decorating as shown in the steam store video was removed due an issue and it’s not certain if it will be re-implemented. There is a bugged quest with Kai; you have the option to give her a dog or cat for her to feel more comfortable living alone at the lighthouse, and I chose to get her a dog, but going to bed resets the quest and defaults to giving her a cat instead. Riding horses is fun because of their quick speed, but dismounting them while they are running makes them continue at that speed until they hit a wall or unclimbable area. While this can be hilarious, chasing down a horse zooming across the map is just fun for the first few times it happens. Overall; it’s a fantastic game. I really enjoyed playing and while I wish there was a bigger display case for pastries and sandwiches you can make, it’s a very fun 6+ hours and it would be interesting if they ever decided to add multiplayer. TLDR; 6+hrs, LGBTQ+ friendly, a pastel slow-paced slice-of-life game where you run a cat/animal café. 21 recipes and a ton of customization for your character and furniture is available. Very feminine and relaxing.