Cat President is just your typical government-filled feline dating sim

There are a ton of strange, animal-focused dating sims out there, from the ones that let you learn to love a pigeon to those that have you speed dating pugs. Cat President ~ A More Purrfect Union ~, out now on Steam, looks to be a pioneering entry in this genre, however: Not only does the game have the player, "an ordinary teen girl," woo one of a handful of kittens, but she’ll have to balance her love life with the fast-paced political landscape that’s dominated by those very same pets.

Based on its description, Cat President sounds first and foremost like a political visual novel. It’s set in an appealing alternate reality where humans were banned from politics due to widespread corruption, leading the Democats and Repawblicans — and later, the Fancy Furballs and the Sharpclaws — to take over.

The game stars six candidates vying for the world’s hardest job on top of their young campaign manager’s affections. Players will have to negotiate their role of packaging a cat’s political stances (on the big issues, like litter boxes and feline diseases) for the masses with their insatiable need to just pet those cuties behind the ears to hear them purr.

Each candidate gets its own storyline, and there’s 350 pages’ worth of text to sift through in this rom-com. That sounds like a lot to read through before November, when players will likely wish the world was just a bit more like the one depicted in Cat President.