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We tested these games: "Island of Cats", "Catham", "Cat Crimes" and "Exploding Kittens"
Photo: Maren Hoffmann / DER SPIEGEL
Tetris with cats: "Island of Cats"
Icon: enlarge Photo: Maren Hoffmann / DER SPIEGEL
Cats!
Tetris!
Guess!
If you don't run to the gaming table yet, you can't help.
The "Island of Cats" is a great placement game in which you puzzle cat tiles on boat plans, collect cat baskets, treasures, fish and orders and, of course, fight for victory points.
The evil Vesh Darkhand is planning the destruction of Cat Island.
We want to save as many of the noble creatures as possible from extinction and, by the way, also to recover a few ancient treasures.
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So far, it doesn't matter, because this story doesn't really matter in the further course of the game.
But clever collecting and laying is already possible: In addition to the Tetris-like tiles on which cats in five different colors and the magical Oshax cats loll, there are also delightful wooden cat figurines, fish and treasure tiles and discovery cards.
If you want to save cats, you need cat baskets - you can use them to catch them on both sides of the island, but this costs fish.
Cat families bring extra points, as do covered rats - and many mission cards bring additional victory conditions into play.
In each lap the villain's ship continues, after five laps it's over.
The combination of card and placement game is attractive: you have to choose wisely for both components, plan farsightedly and you will by no means be able to achieve all your goals;
very different strategies can lead to victory.
This increases the incentive to replay - an important point for such an expensive game.
The "island of cats" offers fun on several levels.
Frequent gamers and pure adult groups will be happy with the professional version, for families and occasional gamers there are cleverly scaled-down instructions that make the game much easier.
And for a solo version (you can find more beautiful solo games here) there are even special cards of their own.
An extension is also already on the market.
The real plus, however, is the box.
Because it is so stable that you can easily put a fat cat in it (on the inside there is the inscription “Place your cat here while you play the island of cats”).
After all, it has been scientifically proven that cats like this.
One to four people aged eight and over, playing time one to one and a half hours
Hand on it:
game material fetishists and tetris addicts
Hands off:
purists who prefer straightforward mechanics to a mix - and who don't like lucky elements
Extend your claws in the mayoral election: »Catham City«
Icon: enlarge Photo: Maren Hoffmann / DER SPIEGEL
In Catham City there is a vote.
Of course, the choice is far from fair - otherwise it would be boring.
Eight factions are fighting for influence in the dark cat city devised by Yuriy Zhuravlev with all the tricks and lots of cards.
You should think carefully about whether you would rather hang out with the Science Council, bribe the bureaucrats, support the hackers, rely on the power of the police or join the mafia.
Five of the factions are used in each game.
Seven cards are face up in the middle of the table.
In your turn you can either take all cards of a faction from the middle or play cards from a single faction.
Each faction has its own rules with which you can collect campaign points and annoy other players: the hackers infiltrate opposing decks, the mafia forces them to give up cards, journalists bring more cards into their own deck and victory points for everyone who uses them wisely, police cats search opposing cards, robocats bring reinforcements to the deck.
Whoever has collected a certain number of election campaign points first wins the mayoral election.
It plays quickly and smoothly, but always exciting - and frequent players can also gain a charm from the nicely designed game, because each round is different due to the different factions.
The short (English) quotes on the cat cards are also nice: "The bullet changes a lot in a head, even if it hits your ass."
Two to six people aged eight and over, playing time around half an hour
Hand on it:
Unscrupulous quick tactics
Hands
off:
Far-sighted preliminary planners
Logic on velvet paws: »Cat Crimes«
Icon: enlarge Photo: Maren Hoffmann / DER SPIEGEL
Who ate the canary?
Was it the clumsy Betty, the smart James, the stray Mr Schröder - or the extremely innocent looking little Tommy Tiger?
Forty cards of increasing complexity each introduce a cat offense and provide clues to the guilty velvet paw.
Strictly speaking, »Cat Crimes« is not a real game, but a collection of logic puzzles.
You place cat stands around a table and adjust them until the guilty cat sits in front of the location of the crime.
You have to combine: If Tommy is sitting to the left of Betty, but Betty is not sitting in front of the fishbowl, instead opposite James and next to scratches - who then has to sit in front of the empty birdcage?
The cardboard accessories are a neat extra that you don't need to solve the puzzles, but they are fun (and make reasoning easier).
As with all solo games, it is also fun for two - you brood together and push the cat figurines around until everything fits.
A person aged eight and over, playing time depending on the speed of thought
Hand on it:
calm puzzlers
Hands off:
lovers of steep tension curves
Very silly: "Exploding Kittens"
Icon: enlarge Photo: Maren Hoffmann / DER SPIEGEL
"Come on, put the instructions away!" With these encouraging words, the instructions for "Exploding Kittens" begin, which at just under $ 8.8 million five years ago was the most widely supported card game on the Kickstarter financing platform.
The success was mainly due to the Internet popularity of its co-inventor: the American cartoonist Matthew Inman runs the really funny website »The Oatmeal«.
The 56-card game can also be learned in a few minutes if you read the instructions instead of watching the explanatory video (there are even more quickly explained games here).
Basically it is a modification of the Russian roulette, only with absurd cat cards instead of loaded pistols: You alternate between playing and drawing.
Anyone who pulls an "exploding kitten" is out if they cannot avert the effect with a defusing card.
With cards like the »electromagnetic dwarf tip tornado« or the »almighty mantis shrimp« you can avoid having to draw a card yourself, you can shuffle again or force other players into the danger zone.
In the end, only the winner remains.
Because of the very simple principle, many frequent gamers despise the game, of which new variants are constantly being released.
But in a group that is looking for relaxed silliness, it can be fun.
Most of all with the new "meowing edition", which does exactly that: it makes cat noises when it is opened.
If cat farts, rainbow burps and the peace nope! Bel price are too silly, you should at least take a look at the more epic works of Inman, for example here - there he explains in a clever and entertaining way how beliefs work.
Two to five players, ages seven and up, playing time under fifteen minutes
Hand on it:
friends of silly fun
Hands
off:
tacticians and fine humorists
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