Pokémon GO made waves among fans and strangers alike when it released in July of 2016. The massively popular mobile app reinvigorated the fandom for players who had mobile phones and simultaneously promoted connection and excercise by allowing fans to explore the world to collect different pocket monsters that showed up on a radar to direct the players where to go.
Since then, countless features and upgrades have been added to the game, allowing for battles and trades with both friends and strangers, team-up opportunities for raid battles, Gym challenges, adventure goals, shiny Community Day Events, and so much more. You can even battle with the members of Team Rocket if you choose.
As the game aged, more generations of the massively popular Nintendo-created creatures were added to the point where nearly every pocket monster could be obtained in one way or another, providing a much more complex challenge than the original 151 initially presented.
The success of the mobile app led to the development of similar games by Niantic such as Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. While the success of these follow-up titles varied and never quite seemed to capture the magic that pocket monsters did (and for some, still do). It seems that there are still minds inspired by the premise when it comes to creativity in mobile game development.
For instance, a relatively new mobile game called Cat Collector takes the premise to an entirely new extent by integrating actual real-life animals into the mix. The game is strikingly similar to that which inspired it, in that there is an incentive to "catch" as many neighborhood cats as you can by snapping photos of them. The app even features a map that shows you how many cats have been caught in the cities around you with their picture so you can search for them yourself.
Don't have time to walk around and look for cats but still love seeing their photos? There's an option to vote for the best cat of the day which allows you to "collect" strays that other users have posted to the app. Also, every picture taken of a cat allows for the creation of a sticker that can be shared via messenger, and since the game allows for any cat to be captured, anyone can snap a shot of their own fur babies and get stickers made to share with their friends in text messages. There's even a "catch together" option that lets others in your vicinity with the app share the experience with you.
Your feed shows you cats collected worldwide with the option to collect them for your own Pokédex-inspired catalog of feline friends. The game promotes excercise and getting familiar with your neighborhood, which can help players pull themselves out of seasonal depression and marinate in what makes them the happiest.
What are your thoughts on Cat Collector? Let us know in the comments section below!