DISCLAIMER: this is not a simple “I want to have a cat” proposal. I consider it an elegant fix for a pack of different problems which are hard to fix with one shot. My proposal is that one shot.
Problems I see:
- home doesn’t offer a “pull factor” which is supposed to make the player return over and over
- the player activity is narrowed to the market and home. The town itself is well designed, but there are many seen-and-forgotten parts of the town that exist just to spread the town out, but those parts feel like a “third leg”: nice to have (I really love the lvl design), but boring and with no way to use them
- the tavern feels absolutely decorative, bringing almost no impact to the player. However, the player wastes his time gathering resources and developing the tavern
- the player has too much food in the inventory, which leads to food inflation in the economics of the game
- home is not cozy enough (secondary problem)
Solution: cat + feeding mechanics.
I will describe a user story and you will see how that works.
The player takes the cat quest from the owner of the tavern. The quest describes the owner of the tavern as a cat lover who lost her cat, just like in the case with her husband, whom we find on the western bridge. Putting her 3 stories together: destroyed tavern, lost husband and lost cat, makes her more unique as a character who looks like a victim who always suffers from life’s hardships. Very dark fantasy way.
During the quest, we find her cat, but she offers the player to keep the cat. The player accepts the cat.
The tavern owner says: “My cat used to eat my food and it refuses to eat any other food. It is very capricious. Also, my cat always brings home some stuff which I don’t need and don’t know how to manage. What a naughty boy!”.
Note: That line may be the reason why she offered the player to keep her cat.
Important: this is the point where you introduce 2 new mechanics: cat feeding and looting random stuff the cat brings.
Next, the tavern owner asks us to gather some food and bring it to her. She will cook some dish which the player will give to the cat.
Cat meals can be cooked only in the tavern to make the tavern truly useful and engage that place in the player’s activity routine.
Cat meals must be cooked with different raw food components the player finds within the world: fish, meat and so on. However, to address the problem with the “seen-and-forgotten” parts of the town, every dish must contain a unique component which can be found ANYWHERE in the town.
Those components must spawn randomly within the town, except for the center area of the town.
It will push the player to explore and walk throughout the town, especially the lower/poorer and edge parts of the town which have absolutely no activity to offer.
Make those parts even more lucrative regarding cat meal components to push the player there and make the town feel more alive and decentralized through gameplay, not just through lvl design.
As dishes are cooked also with food that the player uses to craft meals for himself, it creates another way to utilize it. It will increase the value of the food itself.
When the player has 2 ways of food utilization, the player will have to manage the food at his disposal more thoughtfully.
Important: it also leads to highlighting the importance of fighting skills over eating enough food during the fight.
After feeding, the cat will bring some useful stuff. I would insist on weapons/armor and here is why. You will have to decide how often the player is able to feed the cat. I would recommend limiting it to 24 hours in the game world. That will balance the player’s cat feeding routine with the eventual profit. By the way, the very idea of cat feeding was inspired by “Arc Raiders” and its chicken in the apartment.
Well, the cat meals may differ by rarity, which makes the feeding and meal making deeper. The more rare the cat meal is, the more rare loot the cat brings home. To make it even more interesting, I would introduce unique armor/weapons which are somehow related to the cat theme. For example, legendary knuckles looking like cat paws or something like that. Just recall the “Skippy” gun from Cyberpunk. I understand that it will violate the dark fantasy mood, but, anyway, that is just an example.
Eventually, the player gets a factor which will bring him home again and again. And of course, home becomes more cozy.
Summary:
- a new interesting activity makes the town less decorative and more functional in all areas
- there will be a sufficient factor that increases the overall value of home and pushes the player to return to it
- the tavern now can make a unique reasonable offer to the player
- food economics becomes deeper
- 100% backward compatibility needing ZERO redesigning of current gameplay: just put it on top
I truly believe it may become a core mechanic which will cover gameplay gaps and make the gameplay feel more complete.
Thank you guys for this awesome game! I love it so much that I decided to write all of this 
