{"id":1180874,"date":"2026-02-15T01:46:22","date_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:46:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=561909"},"modified":"2026-02-15T01:46:22","modified_gmt":"2026-02-15T01:46:22","slug":"bongo-cat-is-the-next-banana","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/bongo-cat-is-the-next-banana\/","title":{"rendered":"Bongo Cat is the next Banana"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure> <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" data-caption=\"\" data-portal-copyright=\"\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/bongo-cat-is-the-next-banana.jpg\" \/><figcaption><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">A new idle clicker game has overtaken <em>Banana<\/em> on the Steam charts. That\u2019s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/store.steampowered.com\/app\/3419430\/Bongo_Cat\/\">Bongo Cat<\/a><\/em>, published by Irox Games, which takes the general idea of <em>Banana<\/em> and the rest of the genre and tweaks it a little. You don\u2019t really play <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/gaming\/528435\/bongo-cat-demo-impressions-desktop-clicker-game\">Bongo Cat<\/a><\/em>, necessarily; the cute little kitty lives as an overlay on your screen, tapping away as you press buttons on your keyboard. Every so often, you\u2019ll unlock a treasure chest that\u2019s got a surprise inside \u2014 a hat for your cat, perhaps.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Like with <em>Banana<\/em>, the unlockable items are sellable on the Steam marketplace; depending on rarity, the market sets value. Most of the items are selling for a few cents, but some hats have crept up into the tens of dollars. It\u2019s not clearly as wild of a market as <em>Banana<\/em> was in its heyday, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/gaming\/24173617\/banana-clicker-game-steam-egg\">where bananas were selling for hundreds of dollars<\/a>, but there is a market there. <em>Banana<\/em> was popular because, as <em>Banana<\/em> team member Hery told Polygon, it\u2019s basically an \u201cinfinite money glitch.\u201d You pay nothing, but unlock items that have some value. <em>Bongo Cat<\/em> certainly has the same appeal in that way, but it\u2019s also just a cuter experience. Beyond unlocking items you can sell, the hats are cute. I want them to decorate the cat who sits at the bottom of my screen. As Marcel Zurawka, Irox Games\u2019 managing director, told Polygon in an interview, \u201cpeople like cats, people like cosmetics.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">\u201cI get sent tons of screenshots of people customizing their cats to the things they are doing right now,\u201d Zurawka said. \u201cWhile the demo was running someone played a<em> Construction Simulator <\/em>with the construction helmet.\u201d He continued: \u201cSaw a lot of reviews of people who said \u2018thought it&#8217;s like banana but it&#8217;s actually really nice\u2019 which gives me hope in building something more meaningful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">Zurawka said he was inspired by <em>Banana<\/em> and how the team was funding its game through the Steam marketplace. Cats were an obvious choice. Then someone else threw out using Bongo Cat. Bongo Cat is an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/2018\/12\/24\/18139473\/best-memes-2018\">internet icon created in 2018<\/a> that took off; it was created by a Twitter use named @StrayRogue, then edited to add bongos by another person called @DitzyFlama. There have been a ton of iterations on it since then. There are several claims to the Bongo Cat name that were issued <em>before<\/em> the internet meme, but Polygon was unable to locate any since.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">\u201cComplicated question, the law side of it especially internationally is super complex,\u201d Zurawka said. \u201cWe discussed that internally a lot.\u201d Zurawaka declined to comment further on copyright.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">The other concern players have \u2014 not just with\u00a0<em>Bongo Cat<\/em>, but with\u00a0<em>Banana<\/em>\u00a0and the like \u2014 is whether there could be some sort of scam element, akin to NFTs. Zurawka said that\u2019s not the case. It\u2019s just cats with hats. No one <em>has <\/em>to participate in the marketplace; it\u2019s there if you want it, but easy to ignore if not. Regarding allegations that it\u2019s a keylogger of some sort, Zurawka said he made sure the game did not require networking for \u201cexactly this reason.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">\u201cI also don&#8217;t obfuscate the code and everyone can just check it with a bit of coding knowledge,\u201d he said. \u201cThe game tracks nothing and just counts the number up, that&#8217;s it. Modern antivirus btw would flag it in an instant if I would log or send the keys you type out. If anyone has still concerns I&#8217;m always open to answer any question regarding that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/bongo-cat-is-the-next-banana.png\" alt=\"\" title=\"\" data-has-syndication-rights=\"1\" data-caption=\"\" data-portal-copyright=\"\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\"><em>Bongo Cat<\/em> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/gaming\/24199712\/banana-clicker-steam-bots-top-charts\">stands out among the rest of idle clicker games<\/a> \u2014 there\u2019s a ton! \u2014 because it\u2019s always on, able to sit on the screen without taking up too much space. While other idle clicker games have rushed to cash in on the craze, <em>Bongo Cat<\/em> goes a little bit further because it\u2019s not just sitting in the background; you can see it tapping along with you. (When playing <em>Banana<\/em>, most people just keep it closed in the taskbar, for instance. You forget it\u2019s there.) Zurawka said it can be used as a pomodoro timer of sorts, too: The treasures pop up every 30 minutes, so you can use that to stay on top of tasks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-none\">\u201cI think it was an explosive combination with a good idea (productivity tool\/desktop companion), cute cats and item drops,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/pc\/561909\/bongo-cat-viral-clicker-game-steam\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A new idle clicker game has overtaken Banana on the Steam charts. That\u2019s Bongo Cat, published by Irox Games, which takes the general idea of Banana and the rest of the genre and tweaks it a little. You don\u2019t really play Bongo Cat, necessarily; the cute little kitty lives as an overlay on your screen, tapping away as you press buttons on your keyboard. Every so often, you\u2019ll unlock a treasure chest that\u2019s got a surprise inside \u2014 a hat for your cat, perhaps. Like with Banana, the unlockable items are sellable on the Steam marketplace; depending on rarity, the market sets value. Most of the items are selling for a few cents, but some hats have crept up into the tens of dollars. It\u2019s&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"excerpt-more\"><a class=\"blog-excerpt button\" href=\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/bongo-cat-is-the-next-banana\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1180875,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1180874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polygon"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bongo Cat is the next Banana | Arcader News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A new idle clicker game has overtaken Banana on the Steam charts. 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