Mineko's Night Market is an Animal Crossing-inspired game where you can plant cats in the ground

What are the cats for? "To be cute," says Brent Kobayashi. But they also produce crafting material (hairballs) in Mineko's Night Market, a pleasantly strange and extremely cute game coming next year from Brandi and Brent Kobayashi, who Evan had a chance to speak with today at PAX West 2017.

Mineko's Night Market stars a girl named Mineko who runs a market stall on a Japanese island full of cats. You'll make friends, craft and sell goods, explore the mysterious town, and even grow cats like crops, if you want more cats. Why not more cats? While it takes after Animal Crossing in some ways, Mineko's Night Market clearly has its own style, and Brent says that it comes with "more emphasis on exploration and narrative."

Watch Evan's interview above, and for more on the game and the Japanese folklore inspiring it, check out our preview from July.

Evan's a hardcore FPS enthusiast who joined PC Gamer in 2008. After an era spent publishing reviews, news, and cover features, he now oversees editorial operations for PC Gamer worldwide, including setting policy, training, and editing stories written by the wider team. His most-played FPSes are CS:GO, Team Fortress 2, Team Fortress Classic, Rainbow Six Siege, and Arma 2. His first multiplayer FPS was Quake 2, played on serial LAN in his uncle's basement, the ideal conditions for instilling a lifelong fondness for fragging. Evan also leads production of the PC Gaming Show, the annual E3 showcase event dedicated to PC gaming.