Catch the Cat

About Catch the Cat

Trap the sneaky cat by placing walls on a hex grid. The cat uses smart BFS AI to find the shortest escape path to the border. Block all 6 directions to win. 30 brain-teasing levels across 5 difficulty tiers with star ratings. A faithful clone of the viral 2014 Chinese puzzle game.

Description provided by GameZipper.

How to play

1. Tap or click any empty hex on the grid to place a wall there. The wall blocks the cat from moving into that hex.
2. After you place a wall, the cat automatically moves to one of its 6 neighbors. The cat picks the neighbor with the shortest path to the border.
3. Use your walls to herd the cat into a corner or against existing obstacles. Pre-placed obstacles help you on early levels.
4. Win by surrounding the cat so all 6 of its neighbors are walls. Don't let the cat reach the border or it escapes!

Controls

This game supports touch, keyboard, mouse input; the exact controls are explained inside the game.

Questions

How do you play Catch the Cat?

Tap or click any empty hex to place a wall. After each wall you place, the cat moves to one of its 6 neighboring hexes. The cat uses smart AI to find the shortest escape path to the border. Trap the cat by surrounding it so all 6 neighbors are walls.

How does the cat AI work?

The cat runs a BFS (breadth-first search) from each of its 6 neighbors to find the shortest path of empty hexes to any border hex. It picks the neighbor with the shortest escape path. On higher tiers the cat uses lookahead and second-shortest-path heuristics to fool naive trapping strategies.

How do you win Catch the Cat?

You win when the cat is fully surrounded — all 6 of its current neighboring hexes are walls or off-grid, leaving it with no legal move. You lose if the cat reaches any border hex (the edge of the grid) and escapes.