OmOneko

“A story about cat girls … with bite.”

Nekos are not “people with cat ears.”

These humanoid beings have evolved in the shadows of human society.
Beautiful. Mysterious. Chaotic. Dangerous.

And now, three of them live with you.
Will you be able to get past the stigma and grow closer to them?

A story of cat and mouse…
and rats.

Download OmOneko

get it free on

Steam itch.io

Fact Sheet

Type: Visual novel
Release date: Spring 2025
Platforms: Windows / Mac / Linux
Price: Free
Developer / publisher: TaleChaser.games
Game website: OmOneko.com

Description

When our main character finds himself as the owner of three nekos – cat girls – his quiet world is suddenly beset with the conjoined problems that having three cats and girls in the house can bring.

Overcoming both everyday and not-so-common difficulties, will our main character finally find peace and stability again—and maybe something more?

OmOneko is a bishoujo-style game made by fans like you. It uses a text and sprite-based visual novel model with a NVL styled text box, created using the Ren’Py VN engine.

The game contains adult themes.
Some (veiled) nudity / adult situations.
Infrequent depictions of injuries and blood. Infrequent jump-scares. Comic-book violence.
Mostly pleasant slice-of-life… if life had catgirls.
Mild to moderate “holding-hands” and tugging at heart-strings.

Features

A unique and more cinematic presentation of the choice-driven Visual Novel medium.
Three unique routes and ten possible endings.
An engaging tale told by unusual characters containing over 260,000 words. Several deep and nuanced stand-alone stories woven together means 12-16 hours of story-rich gaming.
Original soundtrack of more than 50 songs and variations.
Several hundred environmental and character images, and over 200 backgrounds.
No AI was used in the making of this game.
Extras area including a “Library” to view all manga, graphic novels, and comics that you unlock along the way.
This game was inspired by other passion projects such as Katawa Shoujo and Doki Doki Literature Club; since those games are free, so is this one!

Team

~Mattyd – Director, Story, Writer, Project manager, Additional art
Oddball – Developmental editor, Additional writing, MC and Additional concept art
DiabloGraves – Developmental editor, Additional writing, Additional code, Additional musical direction
Silentcook – Build editor, Additional writing
XPND.Dev – Developmental editor, Additional writing, Additional code
orian34 – Lead Coder
Malcolm Escott – Composer
Turbo_Udon – Background art / models, Additional CG art
Corax – Sprite art, Additional CG art
TheHivemind – “SinKitty” writer, “Vanquisher” content
cLso.nd – Code, Additional CG art
FizzyPopCake – Sprite art
CplCrud – Sound effects, Project spiritual advisor
Rimajin8 – “SinKitty” (All A Game) art, Additional CG art
KenjiUz – Rats, “SinKitty” (OldSchool & Legends), “Vanquisher“, “Red Rocket” art
M4j0r Byte – Quality testing & Production assistance, Additional code

and
Grayest – Opening credits video, Additional Marketing, Playtesting
TheSassJacket – Alpha reader, Early opening credits video, Playtesting
Remy700 – Dev editing & Additional writing during Shimi & Pepper’s route
JonathanHuygens – CG art, Sprite edits
MALOKAH – CG art, Additional placeholder art, Additional sprite edits
neruteru – “NyakoMaids” art
Sou1eh – Additional CG art
SoliDPFS – Additional background art / model
Reina – Additional background art / model
zzzbookwormzzz – chibis
yapush_khu – Additional background art / model
HeadMed – Additional CG art, Additional placeholders
mariguoringo – Additional Sprite edits

Full credits here

Contact + Community

Discord discord.gg/kr5j5ay4sq (+ contact)
twitter @TaleChaserGames (+ contact)
bsky @talechaser.bsky.social (+ contact)
reddit r/OmOneko/
TaleChaser on Steam (group page)

OmOneko on VNDB

Videos

About TaleChaser

“A bunch of Dunning–Kruger victims developing and publishing games
because therapy is too expensive.”

We’re an international team of amateur, hobbyist game makers.
For most of us, this was our first project.

talechaser.games

Q+A

Is there an order the routes should be played in?
Nope. If you have a favorite neko, you can pretty easily get onto her route with Act 1 choices. The routes were written in the order of Shimi, Pepper, then Clawdia, but like all VNs, making your natural choices on your first playthrough is often the most immersive strategy.

Can I stream / youtube it?
Of course! You don’t even have to like it (*cough* Yahtzee Croshaw). As long as you’re adding your own commentary/voice. Let us know you’re doing it and we might even post the link to your video!

Just don’t do one of those monetized videos / content mills where they press auto-play and go take a nap while the game plays itself. Those chafe our nethers.

Are there any major ideas that were cut?
Oh yeah. Much, but not all, was scope-creep.

Initially we had routes outlined for both Veronika and the Waitress.
We also considered but discarded mini-games like: “Pepper’s Whack-A-Rat” (like whack-a-mole), “StarCheckers” (opponents: Clawdia plays slowly and methodically, Pepper is aggressive and teases, Shimi occasionally appears and steals or adds a random marble, Goro cheats, Waitress, Veronica, Mia, etc).
We wanted to add an option in the extra’s menu where the player could pick and pose the characters, choose BGs, BG music, etc…

“It’s weird that… Why does… Shouldn’t they… How come this doesn’t…”
“Ah, you’re finally awake.”
We’re glad you’re paying attention! Questions like these are natural; we crafted in hints that should make you go “hrmmm…” in places for what’s to come in the story so (hopefully) later you’ll go “AHHH-HAAA!!!”

How long did it take to make?
It floated around in Matty’s head for about a year, then we worked on it continuously for five years.

Did two of the Devs really die while the project was being made?
Unfortunately yes. One had a degenerative disease and we didn’t expect him to make it to a full release. The other got unexpectedly sick, and then kept getting worse.
We miss them both, but they live on in the words and art of this game.

How did you get the Katawa Shoujo devs to work on this?
Feet pics.
Lots of feet pics.
My God, that’s a lot of feet pics.

I really like what you’ve made, how can I help the project?

You can help by downloading and playing OmOneko!
Share with your friends and rate it/write a review.
Follow our social media and come by our Discord.
Getting the word out is the best help we could get!

Why is OmOneko free? Why aren’t you charging $40 for it?
“If it were anyone else,” the old man said, leaning back, “I would probably say at least two million. Money is, however, not something I really have a lot of trouble obtaining. This is a one-of-a-kind program you’re getting from me, and giving away art for something as trivial as money feels… I don’t know, crass, somehow.” (Vanquisher -TheHivemind)

We were inspired by other passion projects such as Katawa Shoujo and Doki Doki Literature Club; since those games are free, so is this one!

This is our hero project.
Maybe we’ll charge for the next one…

What’s the next project for TaleChaser games?
We’re working on something now. We won’t say what because we don’t want to spoil, but if you 100%ed OmOneko, you know what it is. Also, we intentionally wove a lot of cool things into OmOneko (SinKitty, Red Rocket, Cat’n a Rat, Nyako Maids, etc…) all of which could easily spin off into their own projects. Possibly even as episodic or serialized VN/manga hybrids. Clever, eh?
There’s also a stack of other more traditional VN ideas we have that are itching to come out…

I don’t like catgirls.
First, that’s not a question.
Second, neither did we. That’s why we made this!

“The making of OmOneko started shortly after I discovered my first ever Visual Novel: I lost a bet and had to play “Doki Doki Literature Club.” That game broke me.

Something about the immersive atmosphere and storytelling style sucked me right in, and I immediately plunged into the medium: playing and making review videos of VNs, and also taking very small roles to help make DDLC mods and small VNs…

But when I decided to see what the fuss was about with nekos, none of the games I came across sparked enough interest to download them. I just didn’t like how they were portrayed; not alien or mysterious enough for me. I was left with a question: if nekos existed and had evolved parallel to humans (and had not become simply “people with cat-ears and a tail” or “so gw8ful to master!” tropes), what would that world be like? Before I knew it Clawdia, Pepper, and Shimi were living rent free in my head. And every time I put them into a situation, a scene just seemed to create itself.”
~Mattyd (from Director’s Note)

You see, these aren’t the catgirls you’re looking for…

Reviews