Cat 3 news & patch notes

Every cat, unmistakable

• All six match cats redrawn with distinct poses and stronger silhouettes.

• The orange cat is a proper chubby tabby now.

• The yellow cat is actually, finally, yellow.

• Colorblind badges v2: bigger glyphs and a new shape set: ring, triangle, square, heart, star, and crescent.

Pick your music

• New Settings > Audio > Playlist > Customize... panel:

  • Un-check any song to drop it from the shuffle. Toggle it back any time.

  • Boss music on boss waves switch. Turn it OFF and your playlist (or your one pinned favorite) keeps jamming straight through bosses.

  • Every track, has a Play button so you can preview before you decide. The game music resumes right where it was.

• A new run now restarts the playlist from track 1 instead of picking up wherever the last run left off.

• Four new gameplay tracks.

Victory at Wave 50... then it gets weird

• Wave 50 is now a real victory: bank the win and retire, or take the same build into Endless Mode.

• Endless loosens the rules: armor and lifesteal caps rise, and four exclusive cosmic-tier card families join the shop: Cosmic Ascension, Event Horizon, Supernova Claws, and Galaxy Guard. With numbers the base game would never allow. Go crazy. See how deep the cosmos goes.

Tiered upgrades

• Most upgrade families can now roll at any rarity, topped by a super-rare orange Legendary tier with stronger values.

• New families: Moneybags (damage from unspent gold), six color-specific Cat Magnets, and Growth Spurt (max HP that grows every single wave, so survivability can finally scale into the deep game).

• Refine: spend run gold to raise one offered card by a rarity tier before taking it.

Milestone Market

• Every tenth cleared wave opens a market after the free upgrade: three power-ups and one rarity-rolled relic, bought with run gold, lasting for that run only. Prices scale with depth.

For the build planners!

• Click your stat sheet mid-run to pause the fight and open the full Build Details panel: every stat, the effective numbers after multipliers, cap displays, magnets, relics, and enemy intel.

• "Your Build" toggle on every draft and market screen. Review your stats while you pick instead of squinting at a grayed-out HUD. ːsteamthumbsupː

• Laser Pointer and Thorns show both their base number and the buffed number they actually deal after your global damage multiplier.

• Upgrade cards preview the exact stat change before you commit.

Power-up lab report

• Bomb + Rocket finally does the thing: a triple-rocket volley that clears three full rows or columns, direction decided by the rocket.

P A W C H A A S C E N S I O N

• Pulling a maxed relic now earns an Echo for that relic; Echoes automatically ascend it through three permanent tiers, +15% relic power each, while keeping all twelve copies.

• Maxed-relic pulls refund a more generous share of Cosmic Shards.

• Impatient? Press the roll button again to skip straight to the reveal.

Balance

• The first 10 waves keep their gentle onboarding.

• Past wave 30 enemies ramp harder and strike noticeably faster.

• Lifesteal healing is now budgeted per match as a fraction of your max HP (on top of the 55% cap). Big lifesteal builds were immortal. ːsteamthumbsdownː

• Endless Mode loosens that budget along with everything else.

the cats went to the gym, learned to read, and started a band. ːspyroː

CAT³ 1.1 Beta

"It Never Ends. That One's On Purpose." The 1.1 beta branch is open. This is "the big one"! Endless Mode, a whole Legendary tier, a mid-run market, relic Ascension, and a pile of readability fixes. It is also, both legally and spiritually, unfinished. That's the part where you come in. ːsteamhappyː

• Endless Mode. Clear Wave 50 and you can bank the win like a responsible adult, OR keep your build running to discover the exact wave your beautiful crit-lifesteal-Midas monstrosity finally detonates. It's later than you think. Then, suddenly, it isn't.

• Wave 50 is a real victory now. Previously the run just... stopped.. Now there's an actual VICTORY and a choice. Closure! For cats!

• Legendary upgrades. A super-rare orange tier with values that are, frankly, irresponsible. If you see one, take it. We will not be adding a confirmation dialog.

• The Milestone Market. Every 10th wave a shop opens after the normal draft. Spend run gold on three power-ups and a relic. You can now have money problems in a cat game!

• Refine. Pay gold to bump one offered upgrade up a rarity before you take it. Promote that sad little Common into something that earns its keep.

• Relics Ascend now. Pull one you've already maxed and instead of a shrug you get an Echo, which permanently levels that relic up. Duplicates finally mean something. You're welcome, Pawcha addicts.

• The cats are easier to tell apart. Stronger colors and new high-contrast colorblind badges. If you have ever confidently swapped two "definitely different" cats that were the same cat — this one's for you. ːspyroː ((still working through these, some changes still coming))

• Your special ability announces itself now. A chime, a "SPECIAL READY," and a glow around the board. Turns out a small charging bar was too subtle and several of you were simply... never pressing it.

• New music + boss variety. Fresh tracks for the long runs, and boss waves now shuffle between multiple themes instead of playing you the exact same song until the heat death of the universe. These songs will continue to change throughout the beta.

How to opt in:

• Right-click CAT³ in your Steam library → Properties → Betas → pick "beta" from the dropdown → let it update. To go back to the normal version, just pick "None".

Our balance department (one (1) guy, 2am) would really like to know: is the Legendary tier showing up too often, are the market prices fair, and how deep do your Endless runs get before it all goes horribly wrong?

It's a beta, so expect some rough edges; that is the entire point of a beta. Toss bugs, balance thoughts, and cat-readability complaints into the Steam Discussions and I'll read every single one.

Opt in. Break it. Tell me how. :3

• Global Damage now increases every source of damage you deal. Matches, abilities, Thorns, power-ups, and yes, Laser Pointer’s passive damage.

• Previously, “Global Damage” meant “global, except for several things we forgot about.” This was, technically speaking.... a lie. Sorry!

• Rockets and bombs can now be activated without moving them. Click once to select and click again to detonate. On controller, press A twice. You can still drag or swap them when you want to create a combination.

• Double bombs now create a real 5x5 mega explosion. Previously they were just two 3x3 explosions occupying mostly the same postal code. "Six overlapping tiles and a dream."

• Laser Pointer still cannot crit or trigger Lifesteal. It does, however, finally benefit from every Global Damage bonus as advertised.

Our terminology department has confirmed that global means everything, while our explosives department has discovered that two bombs should make a larger explosion.

Sorry about the lies. The damage is global now. For real this time. =3

• Upgrade cards now show the actual stat change before you pick them. Current number → new number. No calculator, spreadsheet, or advanced degree in cat mathematics required.

• Maxed-out upgrades stop appearing in the shop. Crit chance caps at 100%, Lifesteal at 55%, and Armor at 55%. ːsteamhappyː

• Added misclick protection to the upgrade screen. For the first tiny moment after it appears, clicks and controller inputs are ignored. No more finishing a match and accidentally selecting whatever upgrade materialized under your finger.

  • The delay is only 0.4 seconds, since some gamers never misclick.

Our entire UI research department (several Discord messages) has concluded that seeing numbers before making decisions is good, actually.

Read the stats. Keep your click. Stop buying upgrades that do nothing.

• The enemy now waits a moment at the start of each wave before it starts wailing on you. Landing the first hit before you could even see the board was, and I quote, "rude." Fixed. ːspyroː

• Softened up the first ~10 waves. It was tuned like match-3 Dark Souls for someone with 400 hours in. It's now tuned like match-3 Dark Souls for normal people. Baby steps!

• 2×2 squares are a real match now! Box up four cats and they clear + hit harder. Previously this did absolutely nothing... My bad.

• Default hero is now Birdie (the one with, you know, health) instead of Peridot (the big-brain space-economy cat). New players kept clicking Play, getting the long-game money build, and dying immediately. Fair.

HAPPY CAT 3 LAUNCH DAY!!!

Please use the steam discussions for any issues // questions // bugs // etc.

Good luck!! Have fun! Remember to swap to Peaceful mode when you need a break!! (wave 35 ; _ ; )