Mitchiri Neko Mix, Mix 2, and Lab

TL:DR - found the correct archive for a game no longer on the Play Store.

"Translation" note: I normally use double letters to represent the small-tsu character, but the Fan Wiki used a different romanization. Both are valid romanizations from different systems, although I believe the method I was taught is more modern. To respect the community, I will use the accepted standard of "Mitchiri Neko" for English/localized game titles, and to respect my own need for consistency I will use all-lowers "micchiri neko" for the pronounciation guide following Japanese characters. Also I apologise if my English is awkward at times, I'm not so good at Japanese that I can code-switch easily... polyglots and people who become bilingual later in life will confirm, learning a new language does something to the way you process the languages you already know, and most polyglots I know have to keep studying all of them to keep them straight - a bit like how, when you apply a windows update you have to reinstall your IME.

A long time ago on an android I bought at walmart, long before learning Japanese was a hobby of mine, l played an adorable game where cats bounced around inside a jar, like germs in a petri dish. All I remembered about this game was that there were cats, they bred different colors of coats based on what jar and room they were in, and you could scoop them out individually with a spoon. I had thought the name was みっちりねこ (micchiri neko), but this only brought up the game みっちりねこぢゃし (micchiri neko dyashi)...

So I searched for this game, and - I found it! Or, thought I did... turns out the first game that the creators of the Mitchiri Neko series made was みっちりねこみっくす (micchiri neko mikksu), a game very similar to the one I remembered, with 20 cats that could be bred by bouncing them around a jar... but the spoon cleared all of them, and the method of buying new jars was so unfamiliar...

[a screenshot of DC Archives' version of Micchiri Neko Mix on my Note 9 using Android 10]

All of the Mitchiri Neko games have a similar art style and use the same "library" of cats, which gives them a very familiar feel even when playing a very different game mode. Mitchiri Neko Mix and Mitchiri Neko Mix 2 are the only games that I could find that had this particular combination of art and gameplay... but みっちりねこみっくす２(micchiri neko mikksu ni), when I downloaded the archive, had the same problem as the original game but worse - popup webpages that led to bad links, repeating, and the only way to get back to gameplay was to exit the app and restart it. This worked okay for the original Mitchiri Neko Mix, but Mitchiri Neko Mix 2 would start having the popups almost immediately when starting the app. 

I went to google again, with the intention of looking up how to hack apks to remove ads, and instead somehow wound up doing another search that led to a page on the fan wiki with a very different name - Mitchiri Neko Laboratory みっちりねこ研究所(micchiri neko kenkyuusho). It even included a link to a host for the apk! Now I am writing this blog post to help myself remember where to get this game. If for some reason those websites go down, I will have backed up the apks on my Google Drive and since each of them is less than 20 MB it won't be hard to share them either.

[a screenshot of 研究所 (kenkyuusho) working on my Note 9, using Android 10. Note that there are no failed banner ads at the bottom of the screen; also note how much else is going on - I think I actually like the way it was organized in Mix 1 and 2 better than in Lab, especially with the "full" mechanic rather than the "time to die" mechanic, but the popup webpage bug due to archival breaks the game just a bit.]

Note: Because I installed Adobe AIR for one of the mix games, I don't know if Lab requires it; but if it does the game should link you directly to the app in the app store using a black and gray message before the game even shows the developer logos.