Six cats. One presidency. Zero qualifications.
Cat President: 3rd-Rate Candidate drops you into a utopian (and deeply doomed) America where animals talk, sing, and somehow pass legislation. The outgoing leader, President DJ Nibbles, has treated the Oval Office like a sunbeam-and-scratch-post combo—so naturally the country is ready to elect the next Cat President. The problem: every candidate is a mess.
You play the human campaign manager tasked with keeping your chosen feline hopeful out of trouble long enough to survive debates, scandals, and the general chaos of public life. It’s part political parody, part romantic comedy, and fully committed to the bit—right down to cute pictures of real cats and an absurdly earnest tone whenever the story decides it’s time to get emotional (or burst into song).
A visual novel built around routes, endings, and delightfully bad decisions
At its core, this is a choice-driven visual novel with a hefty script (nearly 100,000 words) and a structure designed for replayability. You’ll pick a candidate to support, steer conversations and campaign moments through branching decisions, and watch the story tilt toward one of multiple endings for each route.
The game’s humor comes from treating political machinery with the same seriousness as cat behavior: the kind of world where a hairball incident can derail a budget vote, where a candidate can flip-flop on policy as quickly as they change their mind about going outside, and where a campaign event can devolve into musical theater with no warning.
The candidates: six routes, six disasters
Each candidate offers a different flavor of chaos, with the campaign-manager fantasy shifting to match their personalities.
Cardoon
The current Vice President with a reputation for back-stabbing and cat scratching. Cardoon’s route leans into political scheming and the question of whether you can steer a repeat offender toward something resembling responsibility—or just get pulled into the drama.
Pollytrix
A chronic flip-flopper who can’t keep a position longer than a week. One moment they demand freedom, the next they want back inside. This route plays with indecision as a campaign liability (and a relationship complication) in the funniest possible ways.
Jelly Jam
A Broadway-bound cat with the voice of a star and the political instincts of a knocked-over water glass. Jelly Jam’s route is built for players who want maximum spectacle: big dreams, bigger musical moments, and constant reminders that none of this resembles governance.
Nano
A scientist trapped in a time loop, reliving the same election again and again. Nano’s path twists the premise into something more meta, asking whether they’re brilliant, confused, or both—while giving the story room to toy with repetition and déjà vu.
Finkle
A fiery senator best known for coughing up hairballs on budget bills. Finkle’s route thrives on confrontation, infighting, and the strange reality of a candidate who can’t stop picking fights—and keeps gaining momentum anyway.
Zeus
A mild-mannered cat obsessed with superheroes who definitely doesn’t have powers or a secret identity. Definitely. Zeus’s route plays with genre tropes and secret-identity energy while keeping the political satire in the foreground.
Romance, customization, and responsible cat-dating
Yes, it’s a romance visual novel as much as it is a parody of elections. The game also includes customizable gender options for both the player character and the cats, which is great for letting players shape the route’s vibe and relationship dynamics.
The writing consistently leans into comedy, but it also uses the campaign-manager role to create a surprisingly effective framework for relationship progression: you’re constantly problem-solving together, navigating public perception, and making choices that define how close you become—and what you’re willing to sacrifice to keep the campaign alive.
Mac performance and requirements
As a visual novel, Cat President: 3rd-Rate Candidate is light on system demands and should run comfortably on a wide range of Macs, including older hardware, as long as you meet the OpenGL requirement.
Minimum Mac Requirements
- OS: 10.10+
- Processor: 2.0 Ghz 64-bit Intel-compatible
- Memory: 2 GB RAM
- Graphics: OpenGL 3.0
- Storage: 2 GB available space
Why it belongs on a Mac gamer’s radar
If you’re looking for a story-heavy game that’s easy to pick up between larger releases, this is a strong fit: it’s route-based, replayable, and intentionally ridiculous without feeling throwaway. The combination of real-cat imagery, romance routes, and political satire is the kind of high-concept nonsense that visual novels do best—and the Mac requirements are refreshingly modest.
Key features (as advertised)
- Enjoy a utopian society where animals can talk and sing and pass bills
- Romance a cat (responsibly)
- Six pathways, each with three different endings
- Customizable gender options for the player character and the cats
- Herding cats is easier than getting Congress to balance a budget
Bottom line: Come for the absurd premise, stay for the branching routes and the committed comedic writing. Whether you want musical chaos, time-loop weirdness, or pure campaign catastrophe, Cat President: 3rd-Rate Candidate is a purr-fectly strange fit for Mac.