I absolutely adore an odd dating simulator. I loved and sank an embarrassing amount of time into Sucker for Love, Hatoful Boyfriend, and Lovebirb, so it’s no surprise that the trailer for CatchMaker shown during the Wholesome Snack showcase immediately piqued my interest. However, it’s quite a deceptive first look. Initially, I thought I was looking at a sweet bug-catching simulator, but it quickly pulls in dating sim elements in a significant change of pace.
As you run around, you will in fact catch bugs, but it’s what you do with them after that gets me excited to play. Once you’ve successfully tracked and captured your insect of choice, you’ll get to pop it into a jar with another bug and watch what is essentially a first date play out. The example given in the trailer shows a butterfly and a slug coming together for dinner, but as you watch them interact it turns out there are by no means a compatible pair.
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So, it’s your job as the bug catcher overlord to find the perfect match for each insect. As you watch these date sequences, bugs will express their likes and dislikes, such as a hard shell or a certain amount of eyes. You know, all those features you probably think of every time you find a cool-looking bug.
These will be ticked off in a handy guidebook, so you won’t have to memorize them at the very least. It looks surprisingly in-depth with all these additional features, and frankly I cannot wait to run around flipping logs and picking up whatever creepy crawlies I can find. As long as I can fill my jars with a little army of isopods, I’m happy.
The only downside is that CatchMaker is yet to receive any sort of release window, let alone a specific date. The game is available to wishlist on Steam, so I’m hopeful that we will see at least a demo at some point soon. Either way though, I guess I’ll go back to flipping rocks in real life and cramming bugs into boxes.
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