Cat game claws to top

By: Sarah Stortz

Walking outside into my background, I recognize the same white kitten, Snowball, playing near the tree stump with the same flyswatter that he had yesterday. Right next to him, I notice a brand new orange kitten named Pumpkin scratching on the post that I placed on the deck. In hopes of attracting more cats, I refill the food bowl left outside with Frisky Bits as I did before and wait for the newcomers.

As wonderful as this all might sound, this actually happened through a cellular app.

On Oct, 20, 2014, Hit Point Co. released Neko Atsume: Kitty Collector on the app store as a free-to-download game. The app revolves around you, the owner of a garden, who has the ability to purchase food, toys, and furniture that can attract several different types of kittens to visit and play in your backyard. However, the cats won’t show up unless the app is closed. When you open the app back up, you can watch the cats interact with each other and play with the various toys. After the kittens leave, they start leaving you with sardines that you can use to purchase new types of goods.

On the surface, the gameplay of the app really isn’t all that complex, if not downright simple.

While this can easily come off as seeming dull or boring to play, in actuality, this is what makes the app so stimulating.

Originally from Japan, Neko Atsume has started to gain a notable spike in popularity in the United States since its English release last October.

There around 49 different kittens in the game that you can collect, each with their own unique personalities and designs. When you delve more into the game, you start to become more intrigued to meet every cat and see just how big your collection can grow. The simplicity of it all somehow makes it strangely addicting to play.

Among all of the social media platforms and competitive games that you usually keep on your phone, it’s nice to escape from that every once in awhile and return back to your garden to see if one of your kittens are liking the new ball that you recently purchased for them. Several other users seem to share similar feelings over the app as well, since it currently has over 10 million downloads for both Android and iOS combined.  Even if you’re not a cat-person, it’s extremely hard to get past all of the simplicity and charm that this app has to offer.