The cat Sharikov is a pet you can get in 60 seconds, similarly to Pancake. You can get the cat by giving one can of tomato soup to a stranger Sharikov will pop out of his bag where the cat hides. You can also get Sharikov from a yes or no prompt, saying something about going to a destroyed camp and finding a cat in the middle of the rubble. The yes or no prompt is if you will let Sharikov in or not. Sharikov's owner is a mad scientist. If you find the agents using the wire with which the cat is playing and also hearing what they're saying, you are very near to discover the third good ending. As at the others endings, you need to complete all the requests. If you keep completing them in order, at like day 50-60 someone will knock at the shelter door, there's a high chance to be the agents. Also, it seems to be the easiest good ending, enjoy! If the cat remains in the shelter for too long, Sharikov will discover a fridge containing another cat, Rad. The device later is later found to be a cloning device, spawning a new cat everyday that will eat a single can of soup and, eventually, effectively evict Ted and his family from their bunker. ~If you think the thread misses some information, feel free to add them~
However, if you are lucky, the cat invasion is not the end. Managing to survive through feeding a total of ten cats will unlock the ending: Cat Lady. Wherein, the family has submitted to the will of the felines who, in turn, will keep them fed and safe in the post-apocalypse.
In this ending, you must have only Dolores in the cabin for the cats to become your "overlords," most likely being a reference to a 'Crazy Cat Lady,' as she will go insane by herself. *Needs confirmation*
The cats come in a random order (except for Rad, who is always the first cat) and are all named:
- Rad, a white and grey feline who sits by the radio on the leftmost table and is the first to appear.
- Mat, the grey cat sitting on the bottom shelf in side of the cupboard.
- Solid, a brown cat with darker stripes and a white belly and paws, who lays on the floor to the right, playing with a radioactive cockroach.
- Deerme, another grey cat with green eyes, lying underneath the leftmost table.
- Pauka, the yellow cat with a lighter belly and paws who lays on the floor, against the wall, to the right.
- Beren, a white feline with black and orange patches, sitting next to the food storage in the cupboard, looking downwards.
- Mith, another white cat with black patches on the paws, ears, tail, and face, who lays on the floor, in front of the gun.
Crazy Dolores alone in the cabin with all 10 of her new cat overloads.
- Vera, a scruffy, blue cat with stripes that faces inwards from the front of the shelter, standing before the center table, off to the right side.
- Azya, another blue cat with green eyes that stares back at the screen in a close-up on the left and is the last to appear.
When this ending is reached, you receive an end-screen as follows:
The cats have instituted their supreme regime upon our shelter. With them as our guardians, we don't need to live in fear or despair anymore. The days of happiness are coming and we'll be handsomely rewarded with relative peace and enough soup to feed our hungry bodies as long as we remain obedient and serve them. We welcome our fluffy new overlords.
Sharikov changes his position every day. It's always either at the top of the shelf, at the shelf on the left or on the table.
Once you get Sharikov, Pancake events will no longer appear. If you get pancake and later obtain Sharikov, the cat will enter the shelter but Pancake won't be there, the journal listing an account of Sharikov's display of dominance over said dog and the disappointed look he throws at the family before leaving for good. This unlocks the achievement "Raining Cats and Dogs" when Pancake leaves the shelter and leaves Sharikov.
Like Pancake the Dog, Sharikov does also have some useful purposes. When Sharikov is present in the shelter, infestations do not occur. That means roaches, rats, and other miserable beasts avoid the cat, fearing their lives. Here is an event:
The trash can is becoming full of empty soup cans, and that unmentionable bucket is overflowing. Both of them are attracting strangely glowing, suspiciously big insect wildlife. Roaches weren't that big before the war, were they?
If you have nothing available, but have Sharikov...
We underestimated the value of a cat in this environment. We thought we had a cockroach infestation on our hands, but Sharikov took care of it while we were asleep. Was it reminded of its hunting days before the bomb dropped? Was it mesmerized by the roach's glow? Or does it have an undeniable thirst for cockroach blood? We'll never know why, but we're grateful that we don't have to deal with the insects ourselves any longer.