Android 11's Easter egg has landed as part of the Beta 3 release, and it should probably be familiar to folks that remember Android 7 Nougat. That's right — the cats are back. Get ready for some kitty collecting.

As before, the minigame is essentially a dumbed-down Neko Atsume clone, where you attract and collect cats. Really, pictures of cats. And you can't, like, play with them or anything. They're just sort of there on a list. I'm not selling it very well, but I swear it's fun.

Before we dive into how the game works, let me walk you through the process. As per yooj, you need to head to Settings -> About phone -> Android version and tap the field that says "Android version 11" a handful of times. You'll then be dumped to the screen you see below. Try to turn the dial up as high as you can. Around the third try, it should let you go all the way up to 11 (te-he), and you'll get a toast notification of a cat emoji.

Third time's the charm. 

But the game isn't on yet. You've got a few more things to do before you can lay those cat traps.

Then you'll need to go to Android 11's new power menu smart controls and set up your new cat-collecting controls. Tap the three-dot menu for the smart controls and select "Add controls," then tap "See other apps" on the new screen. You should have a new app named "Cat Controls" in the app list. Tap it.

You'll need to add all three controls — the water bubbler, food bowl, and toy — to start entrapping collecting some digital cats. Once they're added, they'll appear in the controls menu under a new Cat Controls section, in the drop-down list, which appears if you tap the "Home" title. Swipe or tap as required to get each of your three digital feline prerequisites ready to go.

In the next few minutes, you should have a cat scratching at your notification shade. Tap that arrow-in-a-box icon, and you've trapped the cat in a bubble notification, and the bubble overlay will appear on your screen. Tap that to enter the bubble notification management interface (middle, above). From here you can tap cats to rename them.

We're still digging into this revamped cat-collecting minigame to learn the particulars — so far it seems similar to the Nougat game, though tweaked to better promote Android 11's changes like the power menu controls and new bubble notification system. Honestly, it's a pretty smart way on Google's part to get folks using the new features. Even if I remain staunchly anti-bubble, I'd be a fool to let that stand in the way of digital cat collecting.

Thanks: Clayton, Mendy, and everyone else that sent this in