SAN ANTONIO, TX — 5 June 2024 — Today Gentleman Rat Studios has released the first ever playable gameplay demo for their relaxing life-sim adventure game, Critter Cove, which will be featured in the Steam Next Fest in early June.
Critter Cove offers players the chance to grow and rebuild an island community full of colorful and quirky characters. It offers an expansion to the classic cozy formula by combining more typical cozy elements like crafting, farming and relationship building with a fully realized open-world, an in-depth crafting system and town-building, and tourism management elements.
“We want to expand the cozy formula into a much wider, open-world setting,” said Eli Holding, lead designer at Gentleman Rat, “Our design is all about giving players a sense of freedom and a feeling of being on a grand adventure in another world. You can farm, fish, cook, craft and decorate to your heart’s content, but you can also just set sail in any direction and just explore. You can bring what you find on those distant islands back to improve not just your own home and equipment, but the happiness and prospects of a dynamic island community that you help create.”
Critter Cove is set in a tropical paradise of golden beaches and azure waters, but under the water and on more distant islands, the mysterious archipelago holds greater secrets for players to uncover, from sunken cities and dark caves to the remnants of an ancient civilization. Any artifacts and treasures found on your adventure can be brought back to expand the town's resources, create new stores, and even encourage tourists to leave the beach long enough to make cultural visits to the town museum.
The demo lets players explore a portion of the open world, meet some of the island's friendly -- and not so friendly -- inhabitants, and experience some of the town and tourism management gameplay features. Players who check the demo out will be able to carry their progress into the main game when it launches into Early Access later this year.
The demo is fully playable and optimized for the Steam Deck and comes with full controller support, for maximum lean back (or lay back -- we’re not judging) cozy relaxation potential! The game will also be heading to PlayStation and Xbox in 2025.
Trailer - Store Page - Discord - X
Critter Cove Features:
- Explore a handcrafted open world above and below the waves; immerse yourself in a vibrant, tropical post-apocalyptic landscape with a full day/night cycle
- Build yourself a boat and sail across the ocean -- or dive beneath the waves and loot ancient ruins and shipwrecks
- Spend your doubloons to upgrade buildings and explore the world to discover new blueprints and gather resources to grow your town
- Turn mundane salvage into something new! Improve your tourism rating by offering your crafts, food and services to ever-expanding groups of tourists
- Craft decorations and interactive objects that will improve the town and use a completely free placement system to make your town feel unique
- Rescue Critters across the world after storms, assist them in building a home and help them find the perfect (or not so perfect) job in your community
- Embark on quests to find hidden treasures or ancient relics scattered throughout the world; bring back unique salvage for new town buildings and amenities
About Gentleman Rat Studios
Gentleman Rat is a small but passionate indie game studio started in 2014 composed of brothers Eli and Jason Holding and artist Christine Chugon. Their first two game releases were the mobile titles Peggoo Pop and Blocktagon. The team is working on the open world life-sim game, Critter Cove.