Kimono Cats, a mini-game filled adventure, sauntered onto Apple Arcade Friday. If you subscribe to Apple Arcade ($5, £5 or AU$8 a month), you can play this game free of cost, ads or in-app purchases.
Kimono Cats was developed by independent studio HumaNature Studios, best known for Doki-Doki Universe and ToeJam & Earl: Back In the Groove.
In Kimono Cats, you walk through a Japanese festival, called a matsuri. Along the way, you try to keep your companion happy by giving them treats, piggy-back rides and winning prizes from any of the game stalls along the route. But you can also give your companion burnt or poisoned treats, which they — like any person or cat — won’t like.
The core of Kimono Cats revolves around playing a handful of different mini-games modeled after festival games, like catching fish with a net, hitting targets with a ball and a Whac-A-Mole-type thing played with masks instead of moles. You can use the prizes and coins you win from these games to buy decorations for your home village that your character hopes will impress their companion.
The mini-games are fun, the animation is cute, but most importantly, you and your companion are cats who are wearing kimonos. If that doesn’t sell you on it, nothing will.
Apple Arcade adds new games and updates every week. If you’re interested in trying Apple Arcade, you can get a three-month free trial when you buy a new device, or one month for free if you’re signing up for the first time. Open the App Store and tap the joystick icon at the bottom of the screen to launch the service.
