The Burgle Cats is a game created by PONOS and is one of the many spin-offs that have appeared for The Battle Cats. Released in late 2019 in Japan and early 2021 for everywhere else, this game, unlike the Tower Defence that it's based on, is a Stealth-Based Game.
The main gameplay of The Burgle Cats has you sneaking onto other players manors with a team of cats to steal treasure, avoiding the Guard Doges and traps that you'll encounter along the way, while also protecting your own manor from other players that are looking to steal from it. These treasures can give you a variety of goods, from accessories and outfits to make your burglars better to traps to help better defend your manor, that help you advance in the leagues of the game.
Outside of burgling, there's also a lot of things you can do at your base, including praying to the Cat God for miracles, having your cats swipe gold, upgrading your snack-producing facilities, and unlocking new Cat Burglars through the Cat Hunter, among other things.
The Burgle Cats contains examples of:
- Aerith and Bob: Normal names like Noelle, Jesse, Lucas, and Daisy exist alongside some stranger names like Picarin, Soprano, Walker, and Zap.
- Arbitrary Headcount Limit: There's a limit to how many traps you can put on each floor of the manor.
- Awesome, but Impractical: In-universe, the description for the Knight's Helm accessory describes it as such.Legendary orichalcum helmet.Impractical, but still awesome.
- Booby Trap: Some of the traps you can put in your manor, like the Caltrops, Spike Switch, and Poisonous Shroom, instantly deal damage to the cat that triggers them.
- Box-and-Stick Trap: The Cat Hunter uses a variation of this, where it's a basket-and-stick trap with Cat Food as a lure, in order to catch new Cat Burglars.
- Call a Hit Point a "Smeerp": The Will meter functionally works as hit points, with traps doing damage to it. Should it run out, then the current burgling ends in a loss.
- Caltrops: These are available as a trap, causing Agony of the Feet and some Willpower damage to whatever cat steps on them.
- The Cameo: Two of the Normal Cats from The Battle Cats, Cow Cat and Titan Cat, make small appearances during the daily log-in bonus and as the driver of the league promotion vehicle, respectively.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Some burglars have access to the Disguise Kit ability in which they pull out a cardboard cutout of a Guard Doge, granting them immunity against Guard Doges for a period of time.
- Freemium Timer: Treasure chests stolen from other players require keys to open. You get keys every so often for free, but they can also be purchased for real money.
- Gathering Steam: The Apple Tree trap doesn't start off strong at the start of a burgle, but every time it's activated by a cat, the next subsequent activation will deal more damage than it previously did.
- Invisibility: Lake has the ability to turn herself completely invisible, thus making her immune to everything, for a short period of time.
- Needle in a Stack of Needles: Alongside the real vault, there are also two Fake Vaults that don't contain the treasure but rather a Guard Doge that will capture your cat the moment you choose it. Said Fake Vaults look like the real deal, meaning that it's a bit of a guess when it comes to finding the actual vault, unless you have a cat with Sharp-Eyed, thus allowing you the chance to see a Fake Vault, and even then, there's a chance that it doesn't successfully tell you if it is a Fake Vault or not.
- Noiseless Walker: Your cats won't wake up Guard Doges when walking past them.
- Shout-Out: Like The Battle Cats before it, this game does not shy away from making references.
- The designs of certain Outfits/Accessories are very clearly based on something:
- The Master's Wig and the Traveler's Gear are Goku's hairstyle and outfit.
- Cool Red Cap and Trendy Overalls give your cat the appearance of a certain red-capped plumber. The description for the Cool Red Cap even mentions that it's "not suitable for plumbers".
- The Glamorous Wig is said to be "modeled after a famous actress' hair" while the Celebrity Gown is based on the skirt as seen on The Seven Year Itch.
- The Thief's Jacket and the Funky Sideburns from League 4 might bring a certain non-Cat thief to mind, while the Hero's Mark and Hero's Garments resemble those of a dragon-slaying warrior.
- Within the large amount of burglars you can get, some of them have appearances that reference something. These include:
- The designs of certain Outfits/Accessories are very clearly based on something:
- Smoke Out: When choosing to Evade, the current cat will pull out a smoke bomb and disappear from the manor in a puff of smoke.
- Stealth Clothes: The Burglar Bandana is simply a handkerchief mask tied around the face of the cat.
- Surveillance Station Slacker: All the Guard Doges in the manors all start off asleep, despite the fact that they're supposed to be guarding the treasure.
- White Flag: Should your Will drain before you get the treasure and get out of there, your currently-controlled cat will sit on the floor and pull out a white flag as a sign of surrender.
- You Don't Look Like You: In the original The Battle Cats, Cat God had a cat face, blue hair surrounding it, and a human body that's rendered more realistically than the rest of him. While he still has his face and his hair, his appearance in The Burgle Cats has his body be more akin to an actual feline and is rendered in the same cartoony way as everything else in the game.
