Interacting With Three Cats In Virtual Reality

Playing with Catmosonic, I Am Cat, & Kiki Underfoot

Over the last few weeks I’ve had close encounters with very different cats across virtual reality and mixed reality.

Catmosonic

Below is the first cat in mixed reality via the app Catmosonic available on Quest 3 headsets free from today.

The app seems designed to take advantage of Meta microgestures in the eventual absence of controllers. With the controller, I used the analog stick to navigate to the different tools you see in the video and blew bubbles by actually puffing out air for a fantastic interaction.

I’d rather not have been forced to move my child’s playpen to make space for my new mixed reality kitty (Meta’s fault not Catmosonic’s) but the idea that I was moved to reposition the object is also an indicator of how I had been drawn into the software by the interactions. I even enjoyed the way Ziggy, one of my physical cats, came over and blended well with the digital objects I just set down for the headset-based kitty instead.

I’ve seen similar interactions in apps like Hello, Dot and Stay: Forever Home and they were nice too. In Stay, though, the transition to VR mode overwhelms players with the enormity of the space available with traditional game mechanics applied therein to build out experiences for you and the pet. I’ll be curious to see if that particular idea finds stronger footing entirely in flatscreen mode on Steam with the coming release of Stay: Your Forever Pet.

Catmosonic uses VR mode with intention to provide a focused breathing and meditation experience with a controller vibrating on your chest and a digital cat shown overlaid. The software actually shares something in common with the drawing app Pencil because it doesn’t use the Quest controller as a game controller for this. Pencil uses a Touch controller as a paperweight to sync up your drawings across realities. Catmosonic deploys the Quest controller and its haptic vibrations as a replacement for a cat sitting on your chest and purring deeply into it.

I hope, for the sake of Catmosonic and Meta, the haptics in a future Meta Neural Band have enough battery to vibrate like a cat for 10 minutes when holding a hand to your own chest.

I Am Cat

One of the biggest software success stories in Quest headsets is I Am Cat. I wrote about it the day it debuted in 2024 before it racked up 70K reviews.

I played the basketball game HORSE in the driveway with my family when I was a kid and my kiddo plays cat basketball with me in VR. While I was distracted by bugs in the rendering during a recent game my child absolutely schooled me in the game as we played on an airship in the sky.

He is so into the design of this game I reached out to the developers last week to find out when they are launching their announced Beach area. The developers wrote over email “we do not have a confirmed date for the next update yet”. My son has even figured out how to wall cheat using the pause menu. To access blocked areas you can move physically past progression obstacles and then unpause the game. He’s used that knowledge to find a key card hidden in a cabinet granting him access to the cat door to the Beach area even though it isn’t there yet.

My kid spotted Gorilla Tag in the Quest menu and asked about it. I told him it uses similar movement ideas as I Am Cat to make you a gorilla so you can play tag, but it is all based around chat with strangers online and that’s not OK for him yet. I point this out just to illustrate the on-ramp Meta made for cats to become gorillas using a satisfying interaction mechanic at its core centered on Touch controllers.

Kiki Underfoot

Kiki Underfoot is one of my physical cats. He was adopted from Meow Parlour in New York City and he’s the only of my cats to have a last name because, as you might guess, he is constantly placing himself underfoot.

I noted in my recent write up about Retrocade by Resolution Games for Apple Arcade that “I didn’t even stop playing when my cat decided to take a nap purring on my chest right between my headset and the virtual screen.”

I experienced this in pure virtual reality inside Apple Vision Pro reclined on my couch playing Pac-Man while on the moon Amalthea around Jupiter. I was in almost the same position Catmosonic aims to put people in so they can meditate with a virtual cat on their chest made of rigid Quest controller rather than a real furry Tribble-like creature.

Vision Pro’s carefully considered combination of hardware and software invited me to recline first and then Mr. Underfoot jumped at the opportunity to lay somewhere warm and relaxing to him.

That was the single best experience I’ve ever had in VR.

Cat Play

Can Catmosonic make a little furry Tribble-like Touch controller holder to simulate a physical cat more fully? I guess, but even then it would lack the additional warmth of my kitty emanating his purrs directly into the center of my body while I enjoy the solitude of Amalthea and the company of Pac-Man.

Catmosonic is good work in VR, but there are real architectural differences in platforms limiting reach with current designs. I was wearing the Quest 3 Elite Strap, for example, limiting exactly how far I could recline my body and head compared to Vision Pro’s Dual Knit Band. I Am Cat’s performance (alongside Gorilla Tag) shows the Quest platform is at its best when using both controllers in the most active way possible. Developers exploring hand tracking, or turning controllers into tracked objects, must now survive long enough for Meta to ship hardware designed for these kinds of intentions first.

Vision Pro, meanwhile, is at its best when you find its eye tracking and hand tracking enabling you to slip down so far into VR that it invites other creatures to join with the vibe it creates.