I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: there’s nothing quite like a kitten wielding a crossbow. Party Animals gives you an array of adorable pets to dress up and throw into an arena, where they slapstick-spar against each other with bats, shovels, nunchucks and more. Developer Recreate Games looked to the much-loved jelly-baby beat-’em-up Gang Beasts for inspiration for this upcoming party brawler. Playing as a puppy throwing your opponents to their doom off a moving train? Having your otter grab a crossbow to take your family out? It’s pure cuddly chaos. “Picture this: you transform into an adorable corgi, your best buddy turns into a goofy dinosaur, and your girlfriend becomes a cute kitten. You’re all brawling on a submarine, in a bar, in the snow; in all sorts of extraordinary places,” explains the head of Recreate Games, known only as PM. “That’s what Party Animals is all about.” This is the first game from the studio, which previously developed VR software before pivoting to paw punch-ups. PM says that Party Animals is equally informed by his own love of competitive strategy games such as StarCraft 2, and his wife’s preference for cute, stress-relieving titles like Animal Crossing. The desire was to develop something they could both easily enjoy together. “One day, while watching the movie The Secret Life of Pets at home, our corgi and our kitten were playfully fighting in front of the TV,” he says. “It suddenly occurred to me: why not make a game about cats and dogs fighting, akin to Tom and Jerry?” The first character made for the game is named after PM’s dog, Nemo: it’s a royal corgi who plays well with cats. “The golden retriever in the game is my other dog, MaoMao, who’s already 14 years old,” he says. “As we developed the game’s characters, more pets from our team members’ homes joined the cast. When we create these characters, we pour our love for animals into them.” The studio has even adopted a number of local stray cats: “When we take breaks from work, we often visit the pet room for a bit of inspiration,” says PM. Beyond battles, you can also jump into other multiplayer activities, competing to steal things, playing football and more – the idea being that every single one is funny. The game’s loopy physics helps with this, giving the game’s fluffy characters the comical air of tiny drunken brawlers. Those physics make for moments of hilarity that the team didn’t plan for, they say. “A lot of times we’ve been surprised by unexpected gameplay, like when we found out that if a player swings a shovel and lets go, they can knock out a player way ahead of them.” Party Animals is best served socially, advises PM – with a Saturday night being the optimum time to break it out. “Winning or losing isn’t as important as having a good time together … The best scenario would be to gather a few friends to play together offline. Trust me, it could turn out to be one of the happiest weekends of your life.”