About

Trap The Cat is a devilishly clever logic puzzle. A cat sits at the center of a hexagonal grid. You click on hexagonal cells to block them (they turn dark). The cat tries to escape to the edge of the grid; you try to surround it before it can escape. Every move the cat makes is a response to your blockades.

The puzzle requires thinking several moves ahead. Place a blocker carelessly and the cat finds a route around it. Place blockers strategically and you can funnel the cat into an ever-tightening cage. The cat's AI is surprisingly clever — it exploits any gap in your defense.

Trap The Cat is endlessly replayable because the cat's path changes based on your choices. Each game is a unique puzzle with a unique solution (or failure). It's fast — games last 2–5 minutes — making it ideal for repeated quick plays.

How to Play

• Click on a hexagonal cell to block it, turning it dark.
• After each block you place, the cat moves one step toward the nearest edge.
• Surround the cat completely with blocked cells before it reaches the edge.
• The cat chooses the path of least resistance — anticipate which way it'll move.
• If the cat reaches the edge, it escapes and you lose.

Tips

• Don't chase the cat — cut off escape routes ahead of its path instead.
• Focus on the nearest edge to the cat; that's usually where it's heading.
• Build walls, not individual blockers — connected lines of blockers are far more effective.

History

Trap The Cat emerged as a Flash game in the late 2000s and became a widely shared puzzle on early social media. It's related to a class of pursuit evasion problems in mathematics and computer science. The hexagonal grid version became the definitive form, requiring a different spatial intuition than square-grid logic puzzles. The game has been independently recreated dozens of times, testifying to how compelling its simple premise is.