Snap the Cat turns social media clout into an adorable incremental game

If you've ever owned a cat, or been close to someone who does, you probably know that cat owners don't need an excuse to take countless photos of their beloved pets. Our galleries are full of feline photography, and social media platforms are filled with profiles dedicated to cats in all their glory.

So it stands to reason that someone, namely filgreen3, has taken this concept of kitty-powered social clout and turned it into a full-blown incremental, Snap the Cat.

Doing it for exposure

Be honest, how many cat pics do you see every week on social media? It's a phenomenon that shows no sign of slowing, and even the most stringent algorithmic organizers suddenly get sucked into the cat side of things if they so much as glance at a single post for too long. So when I first saw Snap the Cat a few months ago, I immediately found myself hooked, if only for the gamification of something that plagues me in real life.

In Snap the Cat, all you need to do is take photos of cats. Those photos receive likes, some of which convert into followers, until you eventually have a virtual social media empire with millions of fans just waiting for the next picture. Those likes and follows are used to purchase upgrades, like increasing your photo size or boosting how many follows each cat can earn, to speed up social growth. 

The cat in the hat and all of that

Look, there is nothing cuter than cats in hats, and Snap the Cat has a full wardrobe of hats that are randomly equipped to one or more of your growing army of cats. Adorable froggy hats, gentlemanly top hats, and a long list of others all add extra like potential to each photo.

These hats, as well as additional types of cats, are unlocked using gold coins. I can only assume these coins represent the payout from certain platforms when you start to go viral. Wherever they come from, you use them to buy in-game gacha-style boxes. Doubles increase the value of your cats and/or hats, so spending coins never feels like a pointless endeavor.

Taking a brand deal

After building up a fairly respectable online presence with your cat pics, you gain access to the Cafe, where you can look after all of your unlocked cats, give them enrichment toys to keep them happy, and exploit them for your own gain to get extra likes. 

And I do mean that in the nicest way possible. 

Apparently, brushing your cats sends the in-game internet at large into a frenzy of likes and follows. Simply by dragging a comb through their fur, the cats start to circulate through all of their available toys, which seems to be the secret to vitality. The likes go up at lightning speed, and you can upgrade everything within the Cafe to make things even more lucrative. 

Cats on tour

Progressing through Snap the Cat means unlocking new, more likeable locations to explore with your feline friends. The free-to-enter Meadow, your first area, is quickly forgotten once you start unlocking areas like the beach and space. Each area has its own like-boosting collection of decorations to unlock, and each photo eventually ends up being worth multiple millions of likes.

If only social media were that easy to win for us average folk. If only it were as simple as posting a blurry picture of a cat and watching the followers flow in by the millions. Alas, we're stuck doing it the hard (and long) way, but at least Snap the Cat is there to provide a distraction from the real-life struggle of being present online.

Snap the Cat is a gorgeous little incremental that, according to the developer, was never meant to become what it has. However, I am incredibly glad that it came into existence and grew as it did. You can get the full game now on Steam.