The caged cats in Animal Well can be freed, but its one of the most challenging puzzles in Animal Well to solve, and involves finding five songs hidden in the scenery of other rooms. While exploring the bottom right portion of Animal Well's map, you can find these caged cats. There are five in total, and they want to be free! We’ll show you how and all about the special reward you get for doing so: Tap to Reveal.

Be warned: rescuing the cats can only be done after completing most of Animal Well, so we will have to talk about some late-game items in this guide.

Required Items to Free the Cats

You will need the Animal Flute, Top, and Lantern before freeing the cats. Two of these are secret items: the Animal Flute and the Top. Both of these are prizes from the Peacock Egg Room, as rewards for finding 8 and 32 eggs, respectively. Any eggs will do, of course, but if you need some help tracking more down, check out the Animal Well Egg Locations and Puzzle Solutions guide and/or the Animal Well Interactive Map. That will also help you gather any required power-ups you might need to reach the later rooms in this guide.

You will also need to have reached the deep red part of the well and unlocked the Lantern. Freeing the cats in cages is a late-game activity.

How to Free the Cats in Cages: Cat and Song Locations

Each cat has a unique song hidden in Animal Well that you'll need to find and play in the cage rooms to free the five cats. If you want to skip all the song finding below, you can just enter the songs as listed here:

• Cat 1 Song - ↖↖↙↙↓
• Cat 2 Song - ↘←↗↘→
• Cat 3 Song - →↗↑↖↓
• Cat 4 Song - ↘↑↘↘←
• Cat 5 Song - ← ↓↙↘↑

Cat and Song Location #1

If you’ve done all the above, then you’re already familiar with the Ostrich boss region in the bottom right of the map. And you’ll probably recall reaching the first trio of cat cages after taking the elevator down and traveling through the bubble pipe to the left. In fact, you’ll be dumped out right on top of them.

To start freeing them, return to the room with that same bubble pipe, but head for this ledge on the right side. Use the Top to bust up the floor there and find a hidden path, then proceed to the other side. Shine the Lantern in this seemingly empty chamber to reveal a secret message: five arrows pointing in this pattern: OS ↖↖↙↙↓ These aren’t directions: they’re musical notes.

Head back to the trio of cages and play those same five notes on your Animal Flute. The first cat will be freed once you do. Note that you must do this by holding the direction FIRST, then tapping the play button. This will be indicated on the screen by illuminated dots when performed correctly.

Cat and Song Location #2

Now we need to find the notes for the other two. Ride the elevators up, then make your way around the room at the top. Instead of hitting the green switch, throw out your Top to destroy the spikes below. Then you’ll be able to jump through a secret hole in the wall. This leads back to one of those rooms with the floating mouse heads -- and the next code OS ↘←↗↘→. Play this at the trio of cages to free the second cat.

Now head to the room just left of the mouse who powers these elevators -- the same one where you previously blew open a wall with a dynamite switch. You need to reach the top ledge, and doing so requires a special trick with the bubble wand. By jumping and activating the wand at the same time while moving forward just a tad, you can actually infinitely jump your way around without touching the ground. It might take you a while to get the timing down, but once you do, you can use this technique to reach the ledge above. Use your lantern to reveal another code in the next room OS →↗↑↖ ↓. With that, you can rescue this whole cat trio, but there are still two stragglers.

Cat and Song Location #4

The last two cats are in separate cages hanging right before the Ostrich boss that you will have already defeated by this point.

In fact, you might have already rescued Cat #4 if you revisited its room: the five notes OS ↘↑↘↘← can be seen on the wall where the Ostrich’s wheel was previously hanging. Play them to free the penultimate cat.

Cat and Song Location #5

For the final one, head to the room where you got the Ostrich’s Green Flame. You might remember the deactivated fan in here from before. To activate it, drop your slinky off the platform on the right side of the room. It will hit a switch hidden under the water that powers the fan. Use your bubble wand to ride to the ledge above, where the final note sequence OS ← ↓↙↘↑ is carved into the wall. Play that, and you’ll free the last cat.

The Cat Rescue Reward

Now that you’ve found all five codes, the cats are free. What next? Return to the mouse wheel above and look to the right side of the room. You can use your Top to bust up the floor here too.

Take the secret passage to find the momma bobcat, who will sing a tune upon being reunited with all her babies. This will also open the cage in the middle of the room, and if you float down to it, you can get yourself a Wheel.

This handy item lets you walk right over unbreakable spikes, and you can try it out right away. Note that you CAN play this bobcat's song if you want to learn it and skip the freeing of the cats, but it's 64 notes long and takes forever to perform.