There has always been that argument of what games offer to the general public, what makes them addictive; sometimes, it’s an argument that causes the medium to come under scrutiny from other types of media. My greatest argument for gaming is that it offers an escapism from real life. I play GTA because it offers me the chance to immerse myself in crimes I would not commit in the real world (because I’m sane), driving fast cars and blasting my friend’s chopper out the sky with a fabulous pink RPG, like a fist to a fly.

Catalateral Damage allows me to be a cat for the day, and nothing else yet has offered such a joyous role; except, of course, for Skyrim, which allows me to play as a Kajit, a man-cat creature, whatever the Dungeons and Dragons science is behind that. But this time I’m not slaying devil worshiping bandits, or shouting at a scaled creature like I’m overcoming constipation; I’m simply running around a delicious yet basic bedroom, as a domesticated cat. My objective: to be a cat and make a mess.

Crafted in the popular and seemingly limitless Unity engine, anything can be achieved with the right amount of know-how and dedication. Unity can offer ultimate freedom to developers wanting to explore ideas without spending a small fortune. As a consequence, developer Chris Chung has done just that - putting his spare time and the skills he has developed into this one game. In doing so, he has just had his little bundle of joy greenlit on Steam.

What he advertises is a first-person destructive cat simulator. It’s a noble goal, but I see it as more of a mess creator than a destruction simulator; we aren’t destroying worlds, just some poor, lonely sod’s bedroom. Those DVD’s will need reorganizing by the time I’m done flicking my paws across the screen.

With the game only entering into development last September, the current iteration - Alpha v4.1 - is nowhere near finished. Chung is only able to work on what looks like a great Indie game in his free hours. Now, I may have stated that I love this game pretty early on; but not many games offer a quick break from reality, and with a playable browser-based version of the game currently available, it has become my go-to game when I should have been sat concentrating on my work, embedding myself in front of the monitor with the white glow of a word document chiselling into the back of my eyes. And it’s as simple as that: I’m able to turn off and be a cat for thirty minutes, without achieving anything except for finding a certain Zen-like quality that refreshes me before I need to return to my day’s work.

You can’t simply launch a game of League of Legends to relax, especially when you wind up in keyboard battles with a Danish grand master critiquing every ‘wrong’ move you make; Catlateral Damage offers that same enjoyment and quick hit of escapism that a Smartphone may give, but with the comfort of your office chair - not on a sticky, uncomfortable seat on the bus that drives through hell, picking up the local drunks.

Three game modes are present at this early stage: Time Attack, Time Trial and Free mode. How does a cat time-attack a room? By knocking as many objects onto the floor in as short a time as possible. Simply striking objects one by one and sending them tumbling to the grey monochrome carpet won’t cut it; what this cat needs is combos to reach that 100,000 point goal: charging through rows of DVDs and books wind milling like a coked-up cat with rabies.

Meanwhile, Time trial is another score-based game mode and much like how you would attempt to get the fastest time lap time in Mario Kart, the goal here is to reach 150,000 points as quickly as you can. Currently, with the small number of rooms there is only so much to knock down, so forward planning becomes essential. This does present a challenge - and a hard one at that - but it never frustrates. Quite the opposite: it adds to the game’s addictive nature and simply retrying after failure enables you to stay in your Zen-like state as you dash around, jumping on shelves with feline efficiency.

At such an early stage of development, Chung has the ability to build a game based on feedback from the public. In so doing, I hope that others would agree that if he can find the time to add multiplayer options, split screen and online modes, it will become an Indie sensation and the most amusing game of 2014 [Editor’s Note - I think you’re forgetting Goat Simulator].

Firstly, incorporating multiplayer into the score attack would substitute that Zen-like feeling for laughable rushes of blood. I can easily imagine bumping shoulders with a friend on a sofa, giggling like school girls dashing round a full 2-storey house. The fun gained would not be too dissimilar to Mario Kart; you’re not there for the win, just to share your spare time between working and sleeping, being as merry as can be.

Lastly, real-life houses have so much clutter - or, at least, mine does - that I would very much like to see an item-hunt multiplayer game. I imagine it would bring out a friendly competition, scurrying to that top shelf to knock an ornament off. No one would be looking for anything complicated; the game is already refreshing and simple enough as it is; hopefully, this simplicity means that many more game modes can be added relatively easily.

I’m keeping my feline senses on this one; Catlateral Damage is genuinely one of the most interesting concepts I have seen for some time. It’s hard to stick it into a genre. Perhaps we should just take to calling it a cat simulator. Even at this early stage, I can see it easily garnering a lot of fans - especially those stuck staring at a monitor in the office for 8 hours a day.