Board Game The Isle of Cats

This is a smart Tetris-like board game with tile-laying, drafting, and set-building mechanics. Aesthetes will be pleased with the bright, fun art and beautiful components. The game will appeal to both children and adults. It will be perfect for family or friends gatherings and is great to play solo.

Cat rescue in the style of polymino

The good news: the island of cats really exists.

The bad news: Lord Vesh Darkhand is going to destroy it, level the mountains to the ground, and burn the forest... Along with all the local cats, what a horror!

The participants of the game have to save these cute furry creatures. Players will explore the island, search for ancient treasures, collect purrs, and consider how to place the whiskered-striped refugees and the treasures they find on board. At the end of the game, participants receive points for rescued cat families, treasures found, and tasks completed, and lose points for rats on board and unoccupied cabins on the ship.

Preparation for the game

At the beginning of the game, the island board is placed in the center of the table. The ship of the dark lord Vesh is placed on the 5th division of the day track. Treasure tiles and legendary island cats - Oshaks - are placed next to the island. Cat and rare treasure tiles are placed in a bag.

Players receive personal ship boards and basket tokens. They choose the color of the cats and take turns placing one of their cat figures on the turn order track on the island.

Game play

The game lasts five days (rounds). At the beginning of the day, the first player draws random cat/rare treasure tiles from the bag.

1. Fishing phase

Each player receives 20 fish.

2. Exploration phase

Draft cards. Players receive 7 exploration cards. They choose 2 cards each, and the others pass them around. This is repeated twice. In the last phase, they pass 1 card each.

Buying cards. Players choose which cards they will keep and pay for their value with fish. The price is indicated in the upper left corner of each card. They discard unnecessary cards.

3. Question reading phase

Players place the purchased personal quest cards face down in front of them, and the general quest cards face up.

4. Cat rescue phase

Players choose one rescue card each and reveal them at the same time. Rescue cards determine the turn order and provide additional baskets. The cat figures on the island line up in the new turn order. The active player saves 1 cat if he has a basket and enough fish for it. The player takes the cat tile, spends the fish and turns over the basket token (or discards the card with the basket).

The player places the received tile on the ship. The tile must be placed on a free space: it cannot overlap previously laid tiles or climb outside the ship. The player chooses the desired orientation. The first tile is placed anywhere. The new tile must be placed adjacent (horizontally or vertically) to one or more previously laid tiles.

5. Treasure Phase

In turn order, players play rare treasure and oshax cards. They take treasure/oshax tiles and place them on the ship according to the usual rules. When a player lays out a rat tile, he immediately chooses the color of the family for it and places the corresponding cat figure on top.

At the end of the day, the cat tiles that could not be saved are discarded. Vesh`s ship moves one space.

Scoring

The game ends after the fifth day, when Vesh`s ship reaches the island.

The players proceed to scoring:

• each visible rat takes 1 point;
• each unfilled cabin - minus 5 points;
• a cat family is considered to be at least three tiles of the same color that are orthogonally adjacent to each other. Players receive points for saved cat families: 3 families are worth 8 points, 4 are worth 11 points, and 7 are worth 25 points;
• each rare treasure is worth 3 points;
• players earn victory points for completing personal and general tasks.

The player with the most points becomes the winner.