press, and everything you'd have to email me for.
Last updated 23 August 2026
This is a one-person studio named after three real rescue cats. If you're writing about it, everything on this page is yours to quote — no permission needed, no embargo, no PR contact to go through. I've tried to make it the page I'd want to find: the paragraph you can paste, the facts you'd otherwise have to ask for, and an honest line about what has actually shipped and what hasn't.
what's live, and what isn't
Live today, playable right now: the free 18-game browser arcade at heitongbymeow.com/play/ — no account, no download, nothing to install — and a one-room web teaser for the sleep-sounds app at heitongbymeow.com/purr/.
Not live yet: all five native apps (the Arcade for iPhone, Purr, HeiTong Pets for Apple Watch, Focus with Hei, and the pet medication tracker). They're built and running, but none of them has been submitted to the App Store, so none of them has a store link. If you see one described as "available," that's a mistake — please tell me and I'll fix the page it's on.
one-liner
A solo-built cat-game studio: 18 free browser games and a growing family of small, honest apps, all starring the same three real rescue cats.
boilerplate
Two lengths, both written to be pasted as-is. Neither claims a native app is downloadable.
short — about 50 words
HeiTongByMeow is a one-person indie studio built around three real rescue cats — Hei, Tong and Meow. It started as a free 18-game browser arcade (heitongbymeow.com/play/) and has grown into a small family of apps: a sleep-sounds app, an Apple Watch virtual pet, and a pet medication tracker, all sharing the same three characters and the same build-it-myself, no-growth-hacks approach.
long — about 150 words
HeiTongByMeow started with two ordinary facts: the founder has three rescue cats, and wanted an excuse to keep making small things for them. The first result was a free 18-game browser arcade — one screen, one cat, one small idea each — built solo with plain HTML5 Canvas, no build step, no account required. It's been played for free at heitongbymeow.com/play/ since 2026.
From there the same three cats — Hei (the calm watcher), Tong (the mischief-maker) and Meow (the sweet follower) — became the throughline for a small family of apps in progress: Purr, a sleep-sounds app whose purrs are synthesized rather than recorded — every sound is a recipe in code, with recordings of the actual cats a later goal (a one-room web teaser is live today at heitongbymeow.com/purr/); HeiTong Pets, a virtual cat that lives on your Apple Watch and eats your daily steps; and a medication and vet-visit tracker for other people's cats and dogs. Every product is built, tested and maintained by one person.
in the founder's words
Quote this directly, or adapt it to third person — either is fine.
I adopted two cats a few years ago (a third followed), and somewhere in there I started building small web games about them instead of just posting photos. That turned into 18 free browser games, then into "what if this became an actual small app studio built around the same three cats" — a sleep-sounds app whose purrs I had to synthesize, because not one of them will purr on cue and I tried; a tiny virtual pet for the Watch; a meds tracker because I kept losing track of appointments across a multi-pet household. Everything's built solo. No investors, no growth team — just someone who likes making small, honest things for their cats and figured other people might want them too.
The studio is run under the HeiTongByMeow name rather than a personal one. If you'd like a byline or a named quote for a piece, just ask — that's a conversation, not something this page decides on its own.
fast facts
- 18 free browser games — six each for Hei, Tong and Meow. No account, no download: heitongbymeow.com/play/
- 5 apps in the pipeline (the Arcade for iPhone, Purr, HeiTong Pets, Focus with Hei, and the pet medication tracker) — all pre-submission as of this page
- 1 person builds and maintains all of it
- 3 real rescue cats are the entire cast — no stock characters
- The games are plain Canvas and Web Audio: no build step, no third-party game engine, and nothing in the free arcade that pressures you to buy anything
- Purr's sounds are synthesized, every one of them — written as recipes in code, rendered to file, no samples and no third-party sound library. None of them is a recording of a cat. Recording Hei, Tong and Meow for real is on the list, and when it happens this line changes
- No ads, no accounts and no third-party trackers on this website — the whole picture, including the less flattering parts, is on the privacy page
the three cats
If you're writing about the characters specifically — Hei and Meow are both black cats, and eye color is the intended way to tell them apart. It's the one detail that gets mixed up.
| Cat | Coat | Pronouns | Eyes | Personality |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hei | black | he/him | green / blue | calm, watches, sits and waits |
| Tong | tortoiseshell | she/her | gold / amber | mischievous, tests boundaries |
| Meow | black | he/him | yellow | sweet follower of Tong |
links you can use
- Website and free arcade — heitongbymeow.com · /play
- Purr web teaser (playable) — /purr
- The apps, and what each one is — /arcade · /pets · /pettracker
- About the studio and the cats — /about
imagery
There's no download-the-press-pack button here, and I'd rather say why than leave you clicking around for one. The app icons and screenshots exist, but the apps behind them aren't submitted yet — so there's no store listing to point at and nothing I'd want a published piece to link to as though it were live. Screenshots of the browser games are the honest exception: they're of something anyone can go and play, so take as many as you like, straight from the arcade.
If you need imagery for a specific piece — an icon, an app screenshot, a photo of the actual cats — email me and I'll send it. A real request from a real person is easier to answer well than a zip file guessing at what you need.
contact
meow@heitongbymeow.com — the same address in the footer of every page here. It's one person reading it, so a reply may take a day, but it will be a reply and not a form response. Fact-checking questions especially welcome; I'd much rather correct something before it runs.