PAWHOLD: Idle Desktop Cat Space Game

An idle squad shooter that sits along the bottom of your screen while you work. Four pixel cat commandos, and later a fifth, hold the line on their own, tagging an endless herd of robots and critters for bounty. You glance down, click to help if you like, and get back to work.

Somewhere out there, an AI keeps generating worlds and enemies to conquer mankind. Your cats are on the task.

Your squad works while you work

The strip sits above your taskbar, beside whatever you're doing, and never takes your focus: you keep typing, they keep fighting. Check in between tasks, then get back to it.

Meet the squad

ROOK fires your clicks, then goes automatic. ECHO's laser pierces every critter in a line. TORCH wants them close. BRICK brings rockets for the walls and the bosses. Now and then one of them checks in on you: "GOT YOUR MORNING COFFEE YET?" And somewhere down the Line, a fifth cat, LOOP, is waiting to be rescued.

Click when you like

Every click is a shot from ROOK's rifle, and the herd pays out in bounty as it pops. You never have to: your squad can hold the line without you.

A new world every few kilometres

Fourteen stretches of the Line, from neon junctions and silent steelworks to a frozen ice plate and a salt flat, each with its own herd, its own robots and a gate boss at the end.

Bank it, refit the crew, drop back in

When the tally sack is full, bring in the dropship. File the claim at the ship, refit the crew room by room, and drop back in where you left off. The first minute back is a massacre (a cartoon one).

Made to stay out of your way

• Never takes your focus and never reads your keyboard: it's mouse-only.

• One click hides it to a small tab; arrows move it to another monitor.

• It reads your screen's size, never your windows or other programs.

• No admin rights, no account, and it connects to nothing except Steam.

• One price. No microtransactions, no ads, no loot boxes.

Features

• Four cat commandos, each with their own gun and upgrades, and LOOP, a fifth cat to rescue later

• 14 worlds, each with its own herd, robots and gate boss

• A ship to refit, room by room

• Pixel art inspired by 90s arcade run-and-guns

Yes, AI helped make some of this. It's on our label: see the AI disclosure below.