My cats are babies and don't play with toys; the old man just likes napping and getting pets, the other is terrified of EVERYTHING. She's even scared of bubbles! Both of them only like catnip, and that is it.
My step-mothers cat on the other hand. He loves to play. His favorite type of toy is string. He goes bonkers for string. He also likes playing in tissue paper, with q-tips, the plastic rim off of water bottles and balled up paper. He's a little weird.
My cat has two favorite toys. The best part about these toys is that we can either create them ourselves or get them free! We have tried to buy toys for him, but because of his size, the toys are gone within an instant. In an hour's amount of playing, the toy is destroyed.
The littlest of things makes my cat happy. The two toys that he loves to play with are boxes and string. My brother and I love to create box forts for him and see what he can do with it. Wolfy LOVES to just jump on the boxes and break them down and then hide in one of them. Sometimes, there are days where we actually play hide and go seek and he'll be in a box on his back, ready for us to pet his tummy as a form of 'tag'. As for string, he just LOVES to run around and catch it. It's also a great exercise for the family to run up and down the stairs and try to keep the string away from him. Unfortunately, he always outruns us and gets the string. Definitely a lot of fun.
I never thought of tissue paper before. I guess the light density of the paper would allow them to play with it easier. Great idea!
My cat loves playing with the small strip of plastic that comes off the top of milk jugs. Have to be careful with him getting a hold of thin pieces of plastic, he adores them. Every cat I've had has been like that really.
I remember when I was a little girl, my mother showed me how to tie a Kleenex tissue on the end of a length of string, and use that to play with the cat. Our cat just loved trying to catch the tissue as I bounced and dragged it across the floor. As she would get close, I would yank the string, and the kleenex would fly through the air as my cat jumped and tried hard to catch it.
I have used this with many cats over the years, and they all seem to be fascinated by it, and act like it was a real bird or something they badly want to be able to catch.