Remember when Neko Atsume was the rage back in 2014? Almost everyone was comparing which cats they collected and sharing cute photos taken on their phones. If you want a hint of that nostalgia, Dazzle Play has recently released Fantastic Cats, a mobile cat-collecting game that rivals even the OG kitty collector game! We’ve played it for a week, so here’s our handy guide and review of this delightful virtual cat-collecting game.
How to play Fantastic Cats
In Fantastic Cats, you play as a blogger who lacks inspiration. Amazed by the cuteness of the fantastic behaviour of a visiting kitty called Callie, you decide to lay out toys and run a kitty blog that’s updated daily with pictures of cats that visit.
Your goal is simple – gain more subscribers and collect all the available cats in the game! Snapping photos of cats and their fantastic behaviours will increase your daily subscriber count, and you’ll be rewarded handsomely with coins to buy more toys for the cats. As you progress, you can also use the coins to buy custom decorations to beautify your yard!
Collecting cats
In Fantastic Cats, there are a total of 36 cat varieties to collect. Once you’ve met a cat, it’ll be recorded in the Kittydex, which can be viewed by tapping on the paw print icon at the bottom right, and then on the gallery icon.
To invite cats to your garden, fill the food bowl with cat food. There are various options available, as listed below.
- Normal Food: lasts for 2 hours, invites up to 2 cats, costs 60 Gold Coins
- Luxurious Food: lasts for 3 hours, invites up to 4 cats, costs 1 ad view
- Alaskan Tuna: lasts 6 hours, invites up to 6 cats, costs 15 Dazzle Coins (first 6 packs are free)
- Chicken Churut: lasts 7 hours, invites up to 8 cats, costs 25 Dazzle Coins (first 2 packs are free)
- Nourishing Meal: lasts 7 hours, invites up to 12 cats, costs 990 Gold Coins with 2 cans of Alaskan Tuna and 1 pack of Chicken Churut (first pack free)
Our first tip is to always go for higher-value cat food (Luxurious Food and above) to attract more cats to play in your backyard. Oftentimes, you’ll see cats peeking around corners or hidden in bushes — tap on them to see what toy they like so that you’ll know what to buy at the shop to attract them to visit!
Earning coins & gifts
There are various ways to earn coins and receive gifts in Fantastic Cats. For each login of the day, you’ll receive a report on your blog – with an overview of how many cats visited (blue cat icon), the number of fantastic behaviours were observed (purple cat icon), and the total number of followers gained. The report comes with gold coins as a reward. If you’re playing the game a few seconds before it hits midnight, a 3-second countdown will occur and you’ll get your report which much fanfare!
With the first login of the day, you’ll receive gifts with the Daily Rewards system, where each day you can receive a special gift. We’ve noticed that even if you missed out or skipped a day playing the game, the Daily Rewards will not reset.
Another way of receiving coins and gifts is by completing Daily Missions. Tap on the checklist icon on the top right to view the missions – you’ll get up to 3 missions per day to complete. By clicking on the bell icon on the top left, you can view and collect the Daily Event reward, which changes daily!
When cats come to play or relax in your yard, they may leave behind gifts in boxes. Collect these gifts and if your time permits, double it by watching ads. You’ll only be able to accept 3 boxes at a time, so it’s best to check in every hour or so to open these gifts.
If you interact on the Cat Network, you can get 30 free Dazzle Coins daily! These messages will be automatically delivered to your inbox (tap on the paw icon, then the networking icon) by visiting cats – select a message and ‘like’ it. Once you’ve liked 10 messages in a day, the free coins are yours to keep! These messages reset daily, so you can check out fun messages from other Fantastic Cats players.
A rather hidden but very rewarding way to earn coins is to check the shop’s second tab (it has coin icons) and scroll to the bottom – you can claim a rather sizeable amount of Gold Coins or Dazzle Coins every three hours by just viewing one ad!
Discovering fantastic behaviours
Fantastic behaviours are cute, special interactions that cats have with their favourite toys. When cats are attracted to the yard to play with toys (you can place up to six), there’s a small chance that their fantastic behaviour may happen.
Fantastic behaviour can occur even when you’re away from the game. You could increase the chances of seeing it by giving catnip, which you can harvest every 8 hours. Feed any cat to get a chance to discover its fantastic behaviour – but be warned, it’s not guaranteed that you’ll see it.
There are two types of catnip you can get, one is the Normal Catnip which provides a 30% chance of fantastic behaviour occurring, while the Luxury Catnip has a 50% chance of fantastic behaviour happening.
When a cat’s fantastic behaviour presents itself, the game automatically saves a photo in the gallery. These photos are uploaded to the blog at the end of the day, so if you want to save the image to your mobile phone, it’s best to do so quickly.
Should I play Fantastic Cats?
If you fancy a low-maintenance game that’s adorable and easy to play, this one’s for you! Plus points for cat lovers are that you’ll be able to listen to the cute mews and watch lazy or cheeky cats visit your virtual yard. Even if you don’t intend to make any in-game purchases, this free-to-play game is totally playable. The game does provide the ‘premium’ Dazzle Coins as rewards pretty frequently, so it’s up to the player to save up for certain special items from the shop. Moreover, the number of ads in exchange for more rewards is rather manageable and capped to 1 minute maximum, and we like that you’re always given an option to not view the ad!
Where to download Fantastic Cats?
Fantastic Cats can be downloaded for free on Google Play and the App Store.
