Last updated on December 16th, 2025 at 01:14 pm
Idle Pet Shelter – Casual Game Review
Idle Pet Shelter is a Casual/Simulation game from Nova Sphere Ltd., first launched in 2nd May 2022.
It’s rated 4+ and currently has 8,042+ ratings on the App Store.
What Makes Idle Pet Shelter Stand Out
Rescue. Rebuild. Rehome.
Take charge of your own cat rescue sanctuary. Upgrade rooms, care for adorable cats, and expand your shelter empire.
Why you'll love Idle Pet Shelter?
• Transform an abandoned space into a cozy cat haven. Unlock vet clinics, grooming stations, cafés, and play areas.
• Adopt unique rescue cats with distinct traits and needs. Feed them, play with them, dress them up, and track their happiness.
• Build and train your volunteer team. Automate tasks, boost capacity, and balance roles for better performance.
• Expand worldwide. Open new shelters, unlock research upgrades, and rescue more cats.
• Join special events. Take part in costume parties, cat cafés, and community challenges for exclusive rewards.
Core features:
• Shelter makeover – decorate with furniture, toys, and colorful items to improve comfort.
• Rescue and care loop – adopt cats, nurture them, and rehome them for a second chance.
• Volunteer management – recruit quirky helpers, upgrade their skills, and optimize efficiency.
• Strategy and growth – complete story-driven tasks, set goals, and scale your shelter empire.
• Events and community – join guilds, share your shelter, and climb leaderboards.
Start building your cat rescue dream today.
Download Idle Pet Shelter and give every furry friend a second chance.
This Casual game offers engaging gameplay and regular updates for mobile players.
Player Feedback
As a newer release, Idle Pet Shelter is building its player community. Early feedback suggests .
Recent Updates & Development
Latest Update: 25th November 2025
Recent improvements include:
• The Black Week limited offer is now live!
• Minor bug fixes
Download & Availability
Idle Pet Shelter is available through the official App Store for iOS devices.
Get Idle Pet Shelter on App Store
Requirements: Requires iPhone 5s / iPad Air / iPad Air (Cellular) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina) / iPad Mini 2 (Retina, Cellular) / iPhone 6 / iPhone 6 Plus / iPad Air 2 / iPad Air 2 (Cellular) / iPad Mini 3 or later.
Compatible with iPhone and iPad devices.
Player Experience Highlights
Community Insight:
Have only been playing for a few days but Ive been looking for a game like this for so long! Simple yet cute and easy to understand.
SO MUCH CATS MADE ME OBSESSED THANK YOU.
Its fun and addicting, the cuteness of the cats is just wonderful! We think that everyone should get this app.
This game is really one of the cutest idle games. The art is cute and the functions are simple and easy. Its easy to get coins which is used a lot for upgrading; we could leave the game for 5min and our vault could be half full already. Some of the time it takes to do certain upgrades can take a while and you can only upgrade one at a time so you would need to think about what you want to upgrade. We dont have many complaints about the game itself but it would be nice if there was an account link feature for us to save our progress in case of anything. We had this game before but had to delete it for some reason and redownloaded it recently and had to start over. If they added a way to save progress the game would be perfect.
Either please keep the cat cafe or create a game for it like this.
We downloaded the game for just something fun to do, and quickly became obsessed. The no ad button and other features are worth the purchase. Love playing this when we just need a chance to unwind and watch cute kittens.
Too many ads. Almost everything you do there is an ad.
Hi, we dont rate games much but we absolutely love this game! We love the lgbtq+ rep we love the characters having personality, and we love cats! Best mobile game.
We just really want to say thanks for a fun game that delivers true entertainment and drop some praise! We downloaded this game purely off the fact it had higher star reviews, and we were throughly disappointed with our last Idle game. Needlessly to say Im really digging this game and took the advice of getting no ads just cats. It truly is no more ads, and you get the bonuses by simply clicking the video but dont watch it!!! After being completely addicted to the game, we did indeed purchase a bit more for more research slots or more capacity. Its rare to see a phone game that brings such joy and gives such a feeling of fulfillment. Im very happy. Great game and highly recommend. Especially if you LOVE cats! About our only complaint is giving more opportunities to get gems. Gems seem to be incredibly hard to get but it would be nice to see them sprinkled in rewards more.
We love cats so much so this is a natural fit.
We FRICKIN HATE THiS STUPID GAME ITs HORRIBLE we DO NOT KNOW HOW THIS STUPID GAME GETS FIVE STAR REVIEWS jk we love this game.
We love this! It let us get 2 surprise boxes for free its the best game Ever.
We dont know what it is about this game but its surprisingly fun. Though, we feel that you have to buy the no ads upgrade to get anywhere. And just today, something happened where we lost an entire days worth of progress, along with a major set back in the current party event. Im hoping it doesnt happen again, because then we will end up uninstalling for wasted efforts, but otherwise we enjoy it.
The design of the game is fun and cute, but the progress is frustratingly slow. Everything is locked up behind ads and paywalls. We are disappointed because we like the game, but its becoming too frustrating to continue as a free player.
This game is constantly watching ads. Im ok with that. We havent been playing long enough to decide if we want to buy the ad free version. We do like the actual game play. We dont mind clicking ads to get speed ups, bonuses, more cats. Its ok. Its that type of game. However, the vast majority 4/5 ads dont have the mute button. And they are LOUD and abrasive. Since we are always listening to an audiobook, generally with headphones, this is absolutely awful. We cant play this game, and we truly want to. We need mute buttons on ads.
Love this game so much just when the cats come or in danger we get sad when we cant take them in.
This is a cool game and fun game at the same time so yeah have a good day everyone.
Im not sure if it was just our phone. However whenever this app was installed on our device we were unable to take pictures with flash or use our flashlight. Because of that we personally wouldnt trust it.
We were able to get through the first shelter and really enjoyed playing the game but every time we load the second shelter the game crashes, very annoying. We would like to continue playing but at this rate we wont be able too. It would be nice to get some assistance from support if there is any. Disappointed we cant continue.
An amazing game!! Not lots of ads too! Most mobile games spam you with ads. We love cats and we enjoy playing this. We just wish we could save every cat but our shelter is full often.
New system is not useable; sad day when its something Ive looked forward to for some time.
New update isnt working for us.
Anything to make a buck. We have never in our life seen an era of idle games that make every aspect of its game locked behind a paywall in order to make any decent progress. But we guess it was bound to happen. The prices are ridiculous. Not a single upgrade to better help you is obtainable by just saving up a crap ton. Spend money to upgrade your storage to hold more money. Spend money to be able to make multiple builds. Spend $10 for for no ads. Which to be honest, wasnt really worth it. Is there a single quality of life upgrade that is obtainable NOT by money? No. There isnt. Lol free to play games are starting to feel like the socioeconomic road. If youre poor, it aint much fun.
Oh our gosh!!! We love this game! We have completed the Surf Shelter and we are coming back two or three times a day to play!!!!! We love this game so so much!! We love that you dress up the cute kitties and have them dance! We would highly recommend this game and everyone needs to download this amazing game.
We are mainly typing this because we wanted to know if there was ever gonna be new places built into the game since Ive finished all the locations in the game, Im just holding on hoping that there will be new locations so that we can play more but otherwise we love this game. The reason we gave it a 4 star is because we feel the waiting time is a little to long when it comes to upgrading the shelter capacity like it starts out at 2 minuets and then jumps up go 30 thats insane then after 30 it jumps up to an hour and a half like we just want to play the game, we know we dont want to rush to complete it but sometimes the waiting can get very annoying thats all. We also feel like there could be a lot more to the game, we know game developing can be difficult and time consuming and Im not a game developer ourselves so we dont really know what all could be done to make this game fun and longer to play but we just think there could more added to the game for people to want to come back and play it.
Cats eat meat or have meat in their nutrition to maintain a healthy cat, theyre carnivores, that on top of the tracking and identifier warning and accepting 18 terms of use we were done.
We love this game we volunteer at an animal shelter and we work with cats irl and we love it and this reminds us so much of it and u can dress up the cats in this game. And THERE ARE GAY PEOPLE IN THIS GAME.
Ong this game is mad fun we cant even lie.
We love this game! Its like Two Point Hospital for cats! We love the little quirky personalities of the workers and be able to check in throughout the day. We have two criticisms: The game uses up a lot of battery. Our XS gets super warm while playing the game. The game eats through data. We dont have an unlimited data plan and we ran through to 75% of our data pretty early in the month. Upon reviewing the data, in 15 days we had used 3.3 gb of data from this game. Im not sure whats really happening in the background, but a low data mode would be nice.
So we love this game! Its so fun and extremely addicting, the only downside is Ive already beat the 4 locations so now Im just kind of stuck but we dont want to delete the game. We just hope new locations pop up soon.
We have to agree with Jokerssharley on this. We dont like that theres a limited amount of space in the shelter so that you cant take in all the cats (especially since you cant close the door to stop people from coming in constantly). Money comes in more slowly than it ought to, so theres not enough to buy all the necessities. We also think there should be more than one potential pet owner to choose from at a time when a cat is ready for adoption (so we can be more confident about the cat/owner matches). If youre someone who wants to save all the animals or who cries at ASPCA commercials, this is not the game for you.
Can you fix the bugs please??? The catss rehabilitation plan is full, but we cant upgrade their next level for the heart or we cant upgrade them to let people adopt them. We got stuck, cant accept more new cat and cant let people adopt the old cats. Also cant get the money from the adoption, cant upgrade things.
Amazing game, we love the no-ads feature you can pay for, dont have to watch the ads but still get the rewards! Our only wish is that we could go back to previous shelters and check on our other cats:(.
Cute little game. Wish we can revisit previous shelters though- manage them all at once and send cats to other ones if a shelter is full.
This game is real fun, but you need to watch advertising to make progress. The cats walking is so cute. We found the game a little overwhelming at first. 8.5/10 would recommend. Edit: once you fully upgrade the third shelter, there isnt much to do. If we could purchase different decorations or styles that would be nice.
There are a lot of bad adds it is a fun game though.
This game has a ton of cats that need a home and you can get them a new home and they will love it there and your place if you bring them in.
Love the game but wish we could refresh for adoptions more.
We do really like this game. Its one of our favorite idle games Ive ever played. But we already agree to watch ads sometimes to get additional money or speed upgrades up. We dont want EVEN MORE ads that give us absolutely NO in game rewards on TOP of that!! We cant even be in the app for longer than twenty seconds sometimes without an ad popping up when we press on an upgrade or something. Its getting ridiculous and its reminding us of why we previously deleted this game LAST time we downloaded it.
At first its fun , a little overwhelming with tasks but we really liked it. But all the random ads kill it.
Fun little game, ads are meh but not too terrible UNTIL you get to prestige mode. We gave it a few days to see if it would improve or we would adjust and consider it still worth but nope.
Im a huge animal person and this game had quickly become our new favorite, we were electing to watch ads for new upgrades or additional perks at least 2 times every time we opened the app. However, after we got about halfway through our progress for the first shelter, we started getting absolutely BOMBARDED by pop-up ads. Mostly gambling ones, occasionally other games, but theyre super intrusive and annoying. You open the app and within maybe 30-45 seconds, BAM an ad for some scammy feeling app lol. It doesnt stop there, its continuous even if you elect to watch ads. Youll get out of one you chose to watch and get hit with another, its at least once every 60 seconds. We love the features of the actual game, the design is cute and the gameplay is fun, but Im growing super weary of the ads. Maybe play without wifi if it helps, Im unsure. Id say our patience for this app with the ads may last a couple more weeks before we delete it altogether, theres probably another version of the app somewhere with less pop-up ads these days. Wouldve genuinely been a 5-star review a few days ago before the ads.
The game is cute but all the ads and pop ups trying to get you to purchase in game stuff make the playable screen much smaller even on an iPhone pro max. Any ads that you encounter are 60 seconds long. Pricing is outrageous for purchases.
We love the idea of this game, but Id like to see it in a pc or gaming console version. The set up is nice, earning coins is a hassle because your vault can only hold so many coins (we think its like 5k before upgrading). We did buy some coins which dont count toward the vault limit but you also cant accrue any more coins since your balance exceeds the max limit. Theres a lot going on for such a small screen, we think something like this would do better as a game you could buy through Steam, Id buy it in a heartbeat.
The game is a bit difficult to understand but the biggest frustration for us is that for an idle game, whenever we log back in, we have practically no money! We upgraded our rooms and vault but almost every time we come back to check, Im broke. Is one of our volunteers dipping into the cash.
1) Yes, you can go back to previous shelters. You have to get through all of them first. 2) If you pay for ad free, it removes ALL THE ADS. FOR EVERYTHING. When they say ad free, they mean ad free. 3) It would be nice to get some newer shelters, though. Im not sure how frequently the devs update the game though.
We really enjoyed the game but we finished all 4 locations pretty quickly. Hopefully there will be new locations added soon.
The game truly is fun but the constant bombardment of ads once you get to the second shelter is very, very annoying. You cannot do much without getting an ad immediately after. The only way to make them go away is if you purchase an ad free pass for $6.99. Theres better idle games to get obsessed with than this.
The game was so much fun until they added forced pop up ads with the most recent update. We used to watch the ads for extra coins etc but now it has us turned off of the game since they come up at the worst moments :( it was so stinking cute too.
We will say this, we love this game. Being able to match potential adopters to their cats is fun, the small events are also great, and being able to make progress in the game isnt hard. BUT, the game needs work. First, you cant go back to other shelters, once you move to the next city, thats it. Maybe its different when you complete all the cities, but its annoying not being able to go back and check on your other shelters. Second, you cant make more space to take in more cats or get more people to come in, unless you watch an ad, and honestly thats annoying. Lastly, would love to be able to decorate a bit more outside, or have a few things that are customizable, such as the front sign or make things more holiday/seasonal too.
User feedback from Apple App Store
App Details
- Version: 1.27.0
- Size: 480.69 MB
- iOS: 15.0 or later
- Languages: EN, FR, DE, JA, KO, ZH, ES, ZH
- Content Advisory:
- Developer: Nova Sphere Ltd.
Last updated: 25th November 2025 | Genre: Casual, Simulation | Developer: Nova Sphere Ltd.