Neko Atsume has taken over my life. I wake up at 4 a.m. and roll over in bed. "What are you doing, babe?" my girlfriend will ask. "Nothing, babe, I'm just checking on my cats," I reply. And I'm telling the truth.
For those unaware, Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector is a cat collection game. It's sort of a combination of Pokemon, economics, and nihilism. What do I mean? Well, you have a yard, and you want to attract cats to your yard? Why? Well, for a lot of reasons, but they're all for you to decide. The important part of the game is not you. The important part is the cats. You dedicate your life to these cats. The only way to win the game is to dedicate everything to every cat.
Each cat is equally important and valuable. Although they have different "power levels," there is no real benefit to one cat over another cat. Since your only real goal is to see as many cats as you can, one cat isn't really better than any other cat. Sure, cats of a higher power level do seem to give more fish when they leave, and you need more fish to buy food and toys for your cats, but you also still want the lower level cats, since they are cats.
The only way to get all of the cats is to always be playing, but there's also no real benefit to getting all of the cats. See, the cats are great because they're cute little cat friends, but they don't actually do anything. Once they appear they just sit and play with whatever toy until they leave, and they only do a set animation with each toy.
You don't keep the cats, either. You actually have to make an effort to consistently redraw the same cats using the right combination of food and toys in order to get their "memento." The mementos are as useless as power levels, but players still want them. You can only get a memento from a cat who really trusts you. So, earning the memento, even if it is just a shiny acorn from Sunny, is meaningful.
No cat is better than any other cat, and no cat is actually worth anything that you don't put into it, so what's the point of Neko Atsume? Well, the brilliance of Neko Atsume lies in its lack of game. The almost pointed lack of game not only creates an addicting time suck which encourages you to spend real money to buy fake fish, but it also reflects an almost beautifully nihilistic view of the world.
The points don't matter, you just want cats. Surround yourself with this thing that you love (in this case cats) and let the world burn around you. And in an era where a determining factor in the race for the American Presidency is meme-ability, it's not a far reach to search for philosophy in apps.
Nothing really matters in this game unless you decide it matters. Maybe you want to get as many mementos as possible, or maybe you just want to try to get each cat once, or you want to fill up all of their photo albums with pictures. You can do any of these, but you don't have time to do everything.
Neko Atsume teaches us to put a single-minded dedication into whatever we love. A dedication that can almost be destructive, but is beautiful in its destructiveness. Like a painting or a film, Neko Atsume is also an expression of human emotion. Culture is art, and we can draw deep ideas from the analysis of art.
As in life, Neko Atsume forces its players to pick the thing they care most about and dedicate themselves to it. But, you can not do anything out of the world of these cats. Cats which, again, aren't real and don't actually do anything. That's the beautiful thing about nihilism.
You recognize that everything is silly with nihilism, but you still recognize you have no choice but to play the game. The cats don't matter, but I'm playing the game, so why not try to get Mr. Meowgi to show up enough that he gives me a memento. Life is pretty brief, but I still want to live it deeply.
Regardless of intention, Neko Atsume is a game which implores its audience to throw their lives into the one thing they care about, because meaning, as reflected by the rules of the game, is entirely self-derived. We will find the meaning of life within ourselves. For me, right now, my meaning is in checking on my cats, and I'm content with that.
