Feature

The Year in Feels

If we had access to some grand compendium filled with every single emotion that videogames make us feel, it would probably waste most of its words trying to describe fun. But as a concept, fun is primitive. Fun is escape. Like a dog chasing a tennis ball or a crow sliding down a tin roof, fun is intuitive. Fun is smashing your thumb down on the square button while Kratos slings around his orange blades. Fun is nailing that QTE and watching Kratos pull out the cyclops’ eye. Fun is when the red blobs come out and makes Kratos stronger,…

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This Japanese cat-ownership smartphone game is everything

Sign up to receive each week’s Playlist e-mail here! Also check out our full, interactive Playlist section. NEKO ATSUME (iOS, ANDROID)  BY HIT-POINT CO.  Owning a cat means coming home to a gift nearly every day. If it isn’t a half-eaten mouse then it’s a new scratch in the furniture, or a cardboard box now lined with fur. You learn over time that cats are both adorable and mischievous. They’re mysterious beings that do things on their own accord, embodying the unexpected. Neko Atsume, a Japanese pet cat sim, captures all of this feline theater perfectly. It has you adopt cats and buy them toys to nuzzle…