Cat Cafe

Cat Cafe is an idle game drawn as a cutaway of a two-storey wooden cafe on a rainy street. Every cat in the room is tappable: pet one and it squashes its eyes shut, hearts float up, a purr builds and the whole cafe starts paying more. The purr fades if you wander off, which is the only nudge the game ever gives you to come back and scratch somebody's chin.

Hearts buy the things cats actually want — a treat jar, a feather wand, a catnip pillow, a heated floor, an hour of birds on the television — and coins buy everything else. Eight coats arrive one at a time, each with a habit that shows up in the room and in the sums: the tabby finds the warm patch under the lamp, the black cat sits on the counter and pushes cups off it, the tuxedo meets everyone at the door, the ginger sleeps on the espresso machine, the bobtail sits by the till with one paw up. Cushions, boxes, a cat tree, a window perch, a fish tank and a heated kotatsu fill the floor and seat more customers; matcha lattes, cat-shaped cookies, taiyaki and parfaits put up the bill; a barista, a waiter and a groomer keep it all moving while you watch. When the ground floor is full, open the loft: tatami, bookshelves and six more seats upstairs.

Things happen on their own. A box turns up at the door and every cat in the building is inside it before you can blink. Somebody's laptop gets sat on. Rain drives a rush of customers in for thirty seconds. A stray waits under the awning. A photographer spots a cat posing and you have one moment to catch it. When a cafe has run its course, hand back the keys and reopen on another street — Shibuya rain, Kyoto lanterns, a seaside dusk, a snowy corner — and keep the golden bells, which make every future cafe richer. The till keeps filling for up to eight hours while the tab is closed, and a card tells you what you missed.