Mineko’s Night Market, Meowza Games’ adorable feline adventure, is finally due for release on 26 September.
With Oxenfree II: Lost Signals out in July and Mineko’s Night Market coming a few weeks after, 2023 is becoming the year when eagerly-awaited, long-delayed games finally emerge from their respective cocoons.
At yesterday’s Nintendo Indie World Showcase, developer Meowza Games (with a bit of help from publisher Humble Games) announced that Mineko’s Night Market is out on 26 September.
In development for at least four years, Mineko’s Night Market is a 2D, narrative-driven adventure and social sim that casts the player in the role of Mineko, a little girl who lives on an island almost entirely populated by cats of varying shapes and sizes. There’s exploration, puzzle solving, crafting, mini-games, plus the chance to sell your wares at the titular weekly market. It all looks and sounds thoroughly lovely, with a style and narrative steeped in affectionate nods to Japanese culture and traditions.
The sort of game that looked tantalisingly fully-formed from the moment it was announced, Mineko’s Night Market was once billed for release in 2019, only for it to be pushed back multiple times. Even back in those pre-pandemic times, though, it was evident that the people behind the game – partners Brent and Brandi Kobayashi – are true perfectionists.
Speaking to Wireframe magazine in issue eight, the pair described building the game as a 2D point-and-click, before scrapping the entire thing and rebuilding it from scratch as a 3D game populated by 2D ‘billboarded sprites.’
“We found that this allowed for much more interesting possibilities for resource gathering,” the studio told us, “and in the process found that it just made the world that much more fun to explore and tell a story through.”
Meowza has evidently taken its time refining and polishing its whimsical adventure. Here’s hoping it’s been worth the wait.
Mineko’s Night Market is out on PC and Switch on 26 September 2023.
1 Comment
I am really looking forward to this game.