Little Kitty, Big City finally has a date on phones. Double Dagger Studio's open-city cat adventure launches on iOS and Android on Sunday, October 12, worldwide everywhere except China, which the studio says will follow later. The App Store listing is already counting down to 07:00 UTC, and pre-registration is open on both the App Store and Google Play. When the mobile port was announced in August, all the studio would commit to was "late 2026". Now there's a launch day, a pricing model and a clear list of what does and doesn't make the trip from PC and console.
Free to start, one purchase to finish
The mobile version uses a try-before-you-buy setup rather than a premium price up front or a free-to-play economy. You download it for free and play the opening stretch of the adventure. Once you've collected 25 Shinies and handed them over to Crow, the game asks you to unlock the rest with a single in-app purchase. Everything you did in the trial carries over, so you don't replay the opening after paying.
Double Dagger has been unusually direct about what that purchase does and doesn't mean. There are no ads, no subscriptions and no paid DLC. The unlock is permanent. It is also tied to each storefront: buying the game on iPhone does not unlock it on an Android tablet, and owning Little Kitty, Big City on Switch, PlayStation, Xbox or Steam does not get you the mobile version free. The studio hasn't published the unlock price yet, so that will only show up on the store pages once the game goes live.
Nearly the whole game, with touch controls
According to the studio, the phone version contains "nearly all" of the original adventure, with controls rebuilt around the touchscreen. The game's small Japanese-style neighbourhood, the stray animals with errands for you, the hats, the ducklings and the general chaos of knocking things off ledges all come along. The App Store description adds a caveat that content and presentation may differ from other platforms, and Double Dagger hasn't said which parts were trimmed.
The bigger catch for some players is controllers. The launch build doesn't support them, so you're relying on the on-screen virtual pad. When the port was first shown, the studio said that pad keeps the left and right paws on separate buttons, which matters in a game where swatting objects is half the fun. Controller support is listed as "not at this time" rather than ruled out, so it may still arrive later.
Saves don't carry over between platforms either. If you've already finished the game on Switch or PC, you start again on your phone. On the plus side, the game doesn't need a constant connection: you need to be online to download it and to buy the unlock, and after that it plays offline. For a game this suited to short sessions on a commute, that's a sensible call.
The AR photo mode is the mobile exclusive
The one thing phones get that other platforms don't is an augmented-reality camera mode. It places your cat in your real surroundings through the phone camera, and you can pose it, resize it and dress it in any hat you've unlocked before you take the shot. It's the feature Double Dagger has pushed hardest since August, and it's a natural fit for a game built around a cat being photogenic.
There's a limit, though. The camera and AR features aren't in the free trial. You only get them after buying the full game, so you can't try the AR mode before paying.
Supported devices and languages
On Apple hardware, the listing requires an iPhone XS or iPhone 11 or newer, an iPhone 12 Mini or later, or a third-generation iPhone SE. Supported iPads start at the 10.5-inch iPad Pro, the fourth-generation iPad Air, the tenth-generation iPad and the sixth-generation iPad Mini. On Android, compatibility comes down to Google Play's device requirements. The studio's FAQ admits some phones won't make the cut and the store will simply show the game as unavailable on them.
The game launches in 13 languages: English, Spanish (Spain), Japanese, Brazilian Portuguese, French, German, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Italian, Polish, Russian and Turkish.
Why it matters
Little Kitty, Big City has been one of the steadier indie success stories since its 2024 launch, and Double Dagger has kept it going with free seasonal updates ever since. The studio is also running a crossover in Two Point Museum. A phone release fits a game this small, short and easy to drop in and out of, and the pricing avoids the usual mobile pitfalls: you can try it free, pay once, and never see an ad. The open questions are the unlock price and how well the touch controls work, and both get answered when the game goes live on October 12.
