Critter Cove on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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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 1,421 reviews of which 1,350 were positive and 71 were negative resulting in a rating of 9.0 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 24.50€ on Steam, but you can find it for 12.99€ on Instant Gaming.
The Steam community has classified Critter Cove into these genres:
System 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
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
I installed Critter Cove three days ago and since then I have put in a little under 30 hours. I could not have found this game at a better time as my 16-year-old kitty Morgan died recently and I needed something immersive to distract me from my grief. She kept me alive when suicidal, her company kept me sane throughout loneliness and despair and she made me smile and feel grateful for life. I've been able to recreate Morgan (no tortie color pattern, but a calico is passable) and taken her on adventures, built and repaired the town, made friends and scavenged for treasures. It might be an odd way of grieving, but it somehow helps now she isn't lying next to me or on my lap anymore. Gameplay: Think Stardew Valley/Animal Crossing/My Time in Portia/Subnautica, MtiP being the closest match with its bright and cheerful take on a post-apocalyptic world, littered with old trash which you gather and use for crafting and relics from the ancient times you display in a museum. There is displayable Easter egg-type objects hidden around the map, something I'm always a sucker for 😅 It´s a kid friendly single player game and you own it fully when bought, no micro transactions and so far no DLC. The story is the classic moving to an empty, worn-down town and then repairing and building it back up, while exploring, crafting, making new friends and gathering/foraging. You can´t die, you simply pass out and wake up with low health in a safe place nearby. The quests encourage exploration and teach the game mechanics fairly well. I hope to learn more about Captain Anchor and the other characters, but at this point it's mostly crafting and fetch quests as well as a few treasure hunts. This doesn't faze me or diminish my love for this adorable and beautiful game. Again, it's Early Access, there'll be more to come back to in a year or two. I'll replay it for certain. Combat: It has no combat, not even hunting as meat is grown on plants. Fishing: The fishing mechanics are simple, you just click once when the fish bites (which is very clear) and the character does the rest. You don't have to spend ages waiting for fish to bite, something always bites. Lures and locations determine what you may catch. Gathering: Intuitive, fast and easy. Blueprints are gradually learned as you dismantle the devices you find and your progress is shown as you do it and recorded in your journal. About 70% of your gathering will take place underwater. This made me nervous, but I learned that you cannot die and simply wake up floating on the surface and that fixed it for me. Something about gathering makes the monkey part of my brain go completely ballistic. Spotting a tuft of grass when low on fiber or that last popcorn stand needed to unlock the blueprint is an instant dopamine rush and a very large part of why I play these games. Crafting is relatively intuitive if you're familiar with this genre, starting with simple stuff crafted by hand, then moving up to different crafting stations etc. Even the handcrafted items keep being relevant and I haven't noticed any stations or resources becoming obsolete as I progressed. It was actually the opposite as the higher tiers of planks builds off the lower, just with added resin. Which.. yeah, not a fan. Friggin resin. There are two major resource bottlenecks I noticed: fiber and resin, resin being the worst. Fiber is found as small tufts of slim pale green grass or obtained as a byproduct from harvesting crops. Start up farming asap as you´ll need the fiber! Resin is dropped when you chop up the dead trees lying about, though not every log will drop resin. Alternatively you'll have to craft it from oil and wood and until you meet Riggs, oil is rare. Buying it from the shop every day helps a bit. Cooking: The cooking mechanics are a mix of SV and MtiP. You learn recipes by experimenting and when it results in something other than Slop, the recipe is recorded and can be scaled up according to the amount of ingredients you have. You do have to have the ingredients in you inventory afaik, which is annoying, but maybe I´m just spoiled by the crafting stations, who´ll just yank whatever they need from my trunks (trunks are btw interconnected and all are accessible from any one of them, because of Trunk-Space, presumably). Hidden around the map are written clues to a few of the recipes, but it would be cool if you could get clues from conversations too. You thankfully don't have to manually stir, add ingredients, chop etc like in Palia and MtiP. I enjoy cooking in Palia but it´s enjoyable because it´s co-op. Visually: This game is gorgeous with vibrant colors, a cartoony art style, beautiful environments with alien plants and animals and the characters actually have some facial expressions and body language, something I've only seen in very few games of this genre to this day. A few things I absolutely LOVED: The regeneration of resources and salvage is from the tropical lightning storms sweeping the islands every so often, throwing up salvage, sinking ships (if you catch the ship before it sinks you might find a treasure chest) and stranding new characters for you to invite to your . You do not get assigned a house. Bar shops and lighthouse, you can pick any home on the island and That. Is. Brilliant! The town changes around you as the houses and shops are repaired and used by the NPCs and you can place most decorations anywhere on your island and the NPCs will interact with them! Both are features that I've wanted in other games and is deeply satisfying to experience. My greatest gripes: I somehow ended up with 95% villagers of the jock persona before learning to tell the types apart. Since the persona decides what they like and where they will work, and you can't evict them once there, this is a real hassle. The "tsundere-mean-girl personality" is not cute. It's not funny or endearing. I actively dislike those villagers and will avoid them. The few treasure hunts I've had were ruined for me by the great big fluorescently green arrow pointing to where I was to dig.. Like, really? Seriously, guys? Sea of Thieves shows how to do treasure hunts beautifully, I hope the devs will look at them and adjust. Afaik, no one lives in the lighthouse that I worked so hard to repair. That annoys me no end, but that might just be me being weird. Repetitive music. It´s really good, don't get me wrong, but after 10 hours of the same two or three melodies I turned it off. Last but not least: Let me pet the damned turtles! I don't know if my gripes will be changed or tweaked later, the way all the other stuff I'm iffy about surely will: The bad clipping (islanders floating in the habour when they actually are on an island far away according to the game??) as well as the general lack of content after approx 25 hours play, you know, all regular normal Early Access stuff, but I haven’t seen any game breaking bugs at any point, and that is worth noting. I love this game. I lived and breathed this game three days straight, to the point of a shoulder in so much pain from continual use of the mouse, I had to eat painkillers to be able to sleep. Then I woke up and did it again, because: worth it. I want to live in Critter Cove. I found this game through a collaboration between Dinkum (Animal Crossing set in TotallyNotAustralia, with Minecraft graphics, I highly recommend it) and Go-Go Town, because Go-Go Town and Critter Cove were sold as a package deal, and I had a bit of money to burn on games and needed something to distract me from my grief. I hope you´ll at the very least take a look at the free demo with around two hours worth of play in it. It deserves it. Please support it´s devs <3 #critter cove #video games #indie games #cosycore #cosy games #furry #computer games
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This game is really cute and fun BUT I am literally begging ALL devs, please, if your game has collecting and crafting, especially if it's a ton of stuff like in this game, let us: Donate to finish buildings without having to run back to the box to grab the materials, the constant back and forth is not a fun mechanic :(
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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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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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Frequently Asked Questions
Critter Cove is currently priced at 24.50€ on Steam.
Critter Cove is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 24.50€ on Steam.
Critter Cove received 1,350 positive votes out of a total of 1,421 achieving a rating of 8.99.
😎
Critter Cove was developed and published by Gentleman Rat Studios.
Critter Cove is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Critter Cove is not playable on MacOS.
Critter Cove is not playable on Linux.
Critter Cove is a single-player game.
Critter Cove does not currently offer any DLC.
Critter Cove does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Critter Cove does not support Steam Remote Play.
Critter Cove is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Critter Cove.
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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 09 June 2025 16:04 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 07 June 2025 22:15 |
| Steam price | 15 June 2025 04:47 |
| Steam reviews | 13 June 2025 23:56 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Critter Cove, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Critter Cove
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Critter Cove concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Critter Cove compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
65
Developer
Gentleman Rat Studios
Publisher
Gentleman Rat Studios
Release
10 Sep 2024
Platforms
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