In a world where I feel like I need to pick and choose whether I want to play adventures, build a shop, or even just be a cat, MeowCraft offers all of the above and even more. MeowCraft by Meow Studio covers all of its bases — you start your own smithy, equip adventurers to delve dungeons, and enjoy a deep story, all while surrounded by unique characters, a complete world, and fun, intuitive gameplay. I can’t wait to see what else this game has in store.
Story & World
I have played lots of tycoon games in my life and honestly just expected this game to follow that same structure. However, I was pleasantly surprised when the opening felt like the start of an RPG, reminiscent of Dragon Quest Builders, one of my favourite titles. Where some tycoon stories start with the character dreaming of owning their own business, the MC in this game dreams of being an adventurer alongside their best friend — until an unfortunate turn of events leaves that dream out of reach, at least not in the way they expected. With a background in smithing from the family business, the MC decides they can still adventure through their customers, crafting legendary gear with the goal of playing their part in defeating the Demon Dragon.
You’re not only a shop owner locked to your business location and upgrading your store — you can visit other NPCs such as Whiskwood or Old Mok to acquire extra materials, as wood doesn’t just come out of thin air; it actually does grow on trees. You can also visit the town guild and post quests with the aptly named receptionist Recepta, equipping these brave furry adventurers with the best gear your smithy can provide.
Where an action-adventure will often make you the sole main character, this world introduces a diverse cast. From heroes to studious mages, you’ll meet feline friends who need your help with supplies, or who might want to be your apprentice — really adding depth to a world that feels like there’s so much going on, and you’re only ever a part of it.
Gameplay
There’s a lot to this world outside of your shop, but that’s where most of the magic happens. With some training in smithing, you open your own smithy and your journey begins. On this journey you’re working to improve your art — what starts as a basic sword, with practice, becomes a legendary weapon that adventurers can take into the depths of the dungeon.
This isn’t a journey you take on your own. You can hire apprentices who want to learn under you; they’ll help improve your blueprints and keep up with customer demand. What I love about these apprentices is that each is unique — it feels like you’re really expanding a kind of family rather than just taking on nameless employees. Some you even get to know before they make the decision to join you.
As well as the NPCs who join you, there are unique characters with their own stories happening while you progress, and their requirements sometimes drive yours too. An example of this is Amew, a studious kitty magician who at times needs you to craft new magical gear for their experiments — which may require you to upgrade a blueprint, or even source a whole new material for even more epic gear. This really adds to both gameplay and the world itself, as it drives you to keep upgrading your work rather than selling the same old stuff day after day, and makes you feel like a genuine part of an RPG — someone whose quest marker leads them to you, the local smithy.
The actual crafting in this game is simple: you gather the required materials and select what you want to make. This means you’re unable to do anything else while you wait, which is why apprentices come in handy — they can keep working while you source materials and serve customers. I do wish there were something that separated your own crafting from your apprentices’ crafting a bit more; currently you work faster and gain more experience, but I feel there’s space for something else, like the smithing minigame from Fable 2. It wasn’t complex, but it made the job feel more rewarding and added to the immersion of the task.
The next feature is one I’m still investigating, but one that I already love. In some games, like Stardew Valley, an integral part of the story eventually lets you personally venture into the mines. MeowCraft takes the opposite approach — you never delve yourself, but you can still commission adventurers and equip them for the depths of the dungeon. This fun feature works in the background while you run your smithy: before they go, you provide swords, staves, shields, and armour to help them survive whichever floor they’re facing, so you need to prepare accordingly and gear them for the specific monsters ahead. Once you send them on their way, you can watch a playback of what was hopefully a successful delve when they return, and receive rare materials from their trip.
There are plenty of positives to the gameplay, but there are a couple of features I would like to address. One in particular caught me off guard: the way the MC snaps between stations when you click to, say, craft a sword or research a blueprint. Customers and other NPCs walk around the store naturally, so the MC moving this way feels rough by comparison — I’d love to see a 1-2 second walk added, as it would help the overall cosy-store immersion. Also, I have a minor issue with the UI, when you open a menu for something like an item stand, it doesn’t move to the screen — it stays fixed to where it opened, sometimes running off screen, forcing you to move the camera just to use it. None of this is game-breaking, just a quality-of-life issue that would smooth out the overall experience.
Progression
As mentioned, progression is a massive part of the overall gameplay. Your work improves as you craft — you gain experience for blueprints and unlock new ones once you master them, and you can even unlock new blueprints by building relationships and investing in your suppliers as your smithy grows.
It isn’t just your blueprints that develop over time; it’s your store and reputation too. As the days go by and you become more popular, you can expand your store, upgrade passive effects, take on more apprentices, and even run advertising campaigns. All of this keeps the experience from feeling stagnant, and makes you feel like you’re genuinely developing your business from a small local shop to the talk of the empire.
One of the key things that really makes this game stand out is the story itself and its end goal — it isn’t to become a world-renowned blacksmith, it’s to be the blacksmith who equips the heroes that will defeat the infamous Demon Dragon. While living your day-to-day life, you’ll receive updates on how that fight is going, and your commissioned dungeon delves feed into that progress as well. The story adds a dynamic feel to the world around your smithy, so it isn’t just you who’s progressing.
I’m currently still working through the game, enjoying the gameplay, story, and world, but I am having an issue with pacing. I reached a point where I’d unlocked dungeon delving, multiple NPC apprentices, and my suppliers all at once, and was then left to my own devices to go deeper into the dungeon, work on blueprints, and invest in suppliers. That was a lot of unlocks arriving together, which led to a fair amount of grinding for gold and materials to develop everything at once. It might be worth scattering these unlocks across reputation levels a little more to reduce that grindy feeling.
Art Style & Sound
One thing that’s been hard not to mention so far is the art style. It manages to feel modern and adorable while at the same time looking like the assets could double as a D&D map. The character designs fit “purrfectly” into the fleshed-out world — when an NPC walks in, you can tell if they’re a warrior, a spellcaster, or a ranger without ever feeling like the same three characters are cycling on repeat, yet you still instantly recognise a named or unique NPC by their standout features.
Alongside the characters and atmosphere, the weapon and armour design deserves a mention too. You’d be surprised how often a tycoon game’s goods feel static, but in MeowCraft you genuinely progress from basic swords and armour to truly legendary-looking weapons that make you feel like a blacksmith of legend.
The music is understated but does exactly what it should. There isn’t a massive soundtrack, but the background music sets the atmosphere of the local smithy perfectly — I can hear it as I write this, since I’m about to go play more after finishing this review, and it gives off all the relaxing, RPG, fairytale vibes I’ve mentioned throughout.
Verdict
Overall, I’m giving MeowCraft an 8/10, with an asterisk that it could easily be a 10/10 with a few quality-of-life updates — something I suspect we’ll see, as the developers are frequently updating the game on Steam. This game offers an amazing, unique world for an amazing price of just £3.86. I’m currently eight hours in and feel like I could easily dedicate a lot more time to it, especially with some Steam reviewers logging over 100 hours of playtime. I’d absolutely recommend this game to anyone who loves tycoon games, cosy games, or even just cats.
