Meowdoku Level 36 Walkthrough: Three Columns Decide Everything

The Meowdoku Level 36 board

The eight colors on the Meowdoku Level 36 board are rose, apricot, butter, matcha, mint, soda, periwinkle, and lilac. Rose is the smallest region with a single tile at row 1, column 2. Matcha is next with just two tiles stacked at row 3, column 8 and row 4, column 8, tucked into the right edge.

Apricot has five tiles near the top right, soda has six on the left, and butter and periwinkle each have seven. Lilac covers sixteen tiles in the bottom left, and mint is the giant here with twenty tiles snaking through the middle of the grid from the top left to the lower right.

The shape to notice is that butter, matcha, and apricot are all narrow and tall or narrow and bent. Narrow regions are the ones that end up trapped in a single column, and on this board three of them do exactly that.

The opening move: rose gives you a foothold

Place your first cat on row 1, column 2. The rose region is one tile, so the rose cat is forced there and no reasoning is needed. This is technique T1, the last open tile in a color, and it is how most boards in these cat games begin.

That cat clears row 1, column 2, and the tiles that touch it. The effect on butter is immediate and important, because butter loses its tiles in row 1 and is left reaching only into column 5.

From here Meowdoku Level 36 stops handing you cats and starts handing you crosses instead. Do not be put off by that. Each cross is easy on its own, and together they do all the work.

The key moment: butter, matcha, and apricot claim their columns

Start with butter, the color that decides the middle of Meowdoku Level 36. After the rose cat, every open butter tile sits in column 5, so the cat in column 5 must be the butter cat. That is technique T3, a color locked to one line. Cross out the mint tiles at row 4, column 5, row 5, column 5, row 6, column 5, and row 7, column 5, and the lilac tile at row 8, column 5.

Matcha does the same thing on the other side of the board. Both of its tiles are in column 8, so column 8 is reserved for matcha. Cross out the apricot tile at row 2, column 8 and the periwinkle tiles at row 5, column 8, row 6, column 8, row 7, column 8, and row 8, column 8. Then apply the touching rule, technique T4, three times: row 3, column 6 touches every open apricot tile, and row 2, column 4 and row 2, column 6 each touch every open butter tile, so all three are crossed.

Those crosses squeeze apricot into column 7, and once again the line belongs to one color. Cross out the periwinkle tile at row 5, column 7, the mint tile at row 6, column 7, and the periwinkle tile at row 7, column 7. Periwinkle has now lost its options on the right side of the board and is down to one open tile, so the second cat lands on row 7, column 6. One more touching-rule cross at row 3, column 8 finishes apricot off, matcha takes row 4, column 8, apricot takes row 2, column 7, and butter, mint, soda, and lilac each fall into place as the last open tile in their color.

How to handle long cross chains in Meowdoku

Boards like this one can feel stuck when nothing is forced for a long stretch. The fix is to stop looking for cats and start looking for lines. A color squeezed into one row or column always gives you a handful of crosses, and a handful of crosses usually reveals the next such color.

These are the habits that make a sixteen-cross opening feel routine rather than daunting, and they apply across all of these free online games.

• When no cat is forced, hunt for a color confined to one line instead of staring at the board.
• Work the narrow regions first, since tall thin shapes are the most likely to be locked into a column.
• After each batch of crosses, recheck the colors you already looked at, because one lock often creates the next.
• Mark every cross with a single tap; on a chain this long, memory is not good enough.
• Leave the giant region, mint here, until the end, because it resolves automatically once the narrow colors are settled.
• A hint will point out the next forced cat if you lose the thread, which is cheaper than a wrong guess and a lost fish.

What is the solution to Meowdoku Level 36?

In solve order, the cats go on row 1, column 2 (rose); row 7, column 6 (periwinkle); row 4, column 8 (matcha); row 2, column 7 (apricot); row 3, column 5 (butter); row 5, column 4 (mint); row 6, column 1 (soda); and row 8, column 3 (lilac).

Where do I put the first cat in Meowdoku Level 36?

Place the first cat on row 1, column 2, since rose is a one-tile region. It is the only cat you can place before any crosses, and everything else in this cat puzzle game follows from it.

How do I find the periwinkle cat in Meowdoku Level 36?

Lock butter to column 5 and matcha to column 8 and cross every other color out of both columns. Then cross row 3, column 6, row 2, column 4, and row 2, column 6 because each touches every open tile of apricot or butter. Apricot is then locked to column 7, so cross row 5, column 7, row 6, column 7, and row 7, column 7. Periwinkle is left with one open tile at row 7, column 6.

Why does Meowdoku Level 36 take so many crosses?

The solve is 25 steps with 17 crosses, and thirteen of those steps come from a color being locked to a single line. Narrow regions like butter, matcha, and apricot all trap themselves in one column, which produces a lot of crosses before any cat is forced.

Is Meowdoku free to play online?

Yes. Meowdoku is free and runs entirely in a browser tab, so these cat games, animal games, and brain games are available on any modern device without an install.