How to Play Burgle Cats

Burgle Cats is a puzzle/platformer where you lead a crew of burglar cats to break into other players' manors and loot their Vault. The gameplay is simple and easy to grasp, but first-time players may have problems following the basics. Don’t worry, we’re here for you! In this page, we will discuss Burgle Cats’ gameplay.

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Gameplay Flow

The game has two game modes: Burgle Battle and Ticket Heist. (please follow the link for more information about the game modes) Basically, the mechanic for each mode is the same. The main differences are the rewards you can obtain and whether they’ll increase your Burgle Points or not.

To simplify, the game’s flow is enumerated below.

1. Select 5 cats to make up your crew.

2. After arriving at the manor, select a cat to break in first.

3. Select a manor’s entrance where the cat will break in.

4. Navigate the rooms until you find the treasure.

5. After finding the treasure, guide the cat to one of the open exits to escape and win.

The Manor

All manors in the game have the same layout. There are 10 entry/exit points and a total of 35 rooms. When attempting to break in, you’ll have to select any of the entry points. At the start of a heist, 3 rooms will be revealed to you. You can use that information to decide which entry points you want to try first.

Once a cat enters through that door, the security shutter will fall and the entry point will be closed for the rest of the session. After finding the treasure, 4 random shutters will be closed so you’ll have to make your way to one of the few remaining open shutters to escape.

Once you’re inside the manor, the mini-map will be displayed on the upper-right corner of the screen. It will display important information such as rooms you have and haven’t visited yet, the location of the Cat God’s Shrine, the traps you have discovered, and more. Use the mini-map to guide your way through the exploration and cover your escape.

It’s possible for a single cat to keep exploring most of the rooms in the manor until willpower is depleted or it gets caught by a guard doge.

Willpower

This is the gauge on the bottom of the screen that represents the total willpower value of all 5 cats in your crew. Willpower is automatically and steadily drained over time or when your cat triggers specific traps. Once the willpower is reduced to zero, you’ll fail the invasion attempt!

You can only restore willpower by using the Cure-All ability (this is tied to specific cats only).

Getting Captured

If your cat gets captured by a trap, you’ll have the chance to break free and escape by tapping the screen. However, if your cat is touched by a Guard Doge, the cat will be caged and will be unusable for the entire run.

If your cat is carrying a treasure when it gets captured, it will drop it in the same room where it was caught. You can still deploy a different cat to pick up that treasure and head to the exit.

Getting caught (caged) by Guard Doges 3 times will result in a game over/failure.

Evade

This button is found on the lower-left corner and can be pressed to in the event that your cat is about to be caught. Press Evade to throw a smoke bomb and instantly escape to safety. Using this ability is quite useful to avoid the penalty for having too many cats caged or caught. Evading has the following effects:

* The cat who used the evasion will return home and cannot be deployed again in the same battle.

* Your team will recover a bit of Willpower

* If the cat who used Evasion is carrying a treasure chest, it will drop it and must be retrieved by another cat in your crew.

=== Guard Doges===All manors have a total of 5 Guard Doges - 2 hidden inside fake vaults and 3 deployed in rooms. Normally, doges will be sleeping and your burglar cats can safely pass by them without issues. However, if your cat made any noise via trap effects, nearby Doges will wake up and head to the room where the noise came from.

Even if a Guard Doge spots your cat, it won’t result in an immediate capture. As long as the doge doesn’t touch the cat, you can still move it to a different room. However, as mentioned above, if a guard doge touches a cat, it will be caged and will be out of commission for the entire session.

You also have Guard Doges in your own manor. When setting up your manor’s security, place them near noise-producing traps like empty cans or buckets so they can respond to intruders and spook/catch them.

Traps

To protect the manor’s vault, you’ll encounter traps with varying degrees of effects such as damaging willpower, creating Noise, slowing down your cat, and more. At the same time, you’ll need to deploy your own traps in your manor to defend your vault against other players’ burglar cat crews.

Vaults

Each manor has three vaults but only one contains treasure while the other two are decoy vaults. When you open a fake vault, a guard doge will instantly capture your cat. However, once you find the real vault, all you need to do is to make your way out by exiting through one of the remaining shutters to win the battle!

Cat God Shrine

Each manor has this shrine. Visit the room it’s in to absorb some of the spirit power held there. You can absorb more spirit power (up to a maximum of 3 spirits per battle) the higher your willpower is when you reached the Cat God Shrine.

This spirit power can be used on your own Cat God Shrine to purchase permanent upgrades for your manor and for your crew. Additionally, spirit power obtained during the battle can be used to increase the rarity of the chest you’ve looted (in Burgle Battle) or the number of tickets acquired (in Ticket Heist)

Take note however, that the Cat God will wake up as soon as you pick up the real vault’s chest so make sure to visit it before you steal the treasure!

Re-Battling

If you lose a Burgle Battle, you’ll get the option to spend Cat Food to challenge the same manor again. However, there are some things to consider, as listed below:

* Winning a Re-Battle will give you a slightly smaller amount of Burgle Points and the Burgle Points lost from the previous battle will not be applied.

* If you tap the View Traps button, you’ll lose the chance to Re-battle and you can only go home.

* At the start of the Re-battle, the manor’s state will be reset.

* There’s no effect to the defender’s Burgle Points or Treasure if the attacker opts to Re-battle

* There’s no limit to the number of times you can Re-battle but each consecutive attempt will cost an additional 50 cat food.

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That concludes our guide about the gameplay of Burgle Cats. For more helpful tips and tricks about Burgle Cats, please check out our other helpful tips in this guide.