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Oh my God I love cats.
Okay, we’ve got that out of the way. We can settle down now and get back to business. Serious grown-up heads on. (But it’s cats.) From Raybox games, designers Tom Frank and Marco Pecota, and artist Omar Rayyan is a game that stands out a fair bit from the crowd. I think you’ve already guessed why. What do you mean, there’s other games with cats in? Yeah, but not like this.
Welcome to The Cats of Mont Saint Michel. A dark time has fallen on the place and the humans who inhabit it.
The Cats of Mont Saint Michel is a miniatures solo/cooperative campaign game set in the historical monastery Saint Michel and just before the French revolution. You will be playing directly on the coil bound scenario book and using 12 sided dice for combat and collecting cards for loot, skills and powers. The game plays out over a series of linked scenarios forming a campaign and ongoing story. Each previous scenario in the campaign affects the start of the next.
As you play each scenario, your hero will come closer to reaching their ultimate goal of ridding the Abbey of the villainous rats and their brethren. Along the way, they will need to defeat swarms of cockroaches, warrior rats and other foul beings. They will also be gaining experience and unlocking unique skills.
First off, the cover is immense – they look like musk-cat-teers, I can’t even cope (calm down, calm down) – and the figures themselves are amazing. I’d want these minis whether they came with a game or not. The setting is simple but brilliant. Trust me, you will struggle to resist this: the game is set just before the French Revolution, within the monastery of Saint Michel, and your dashing and brave cats must fight to banish the Red Crimson Cardinal and his rat army. Yeah, that’s right, historical cats versus rats. I couldn’t be more there.
As you play each scenario, your hero will come closer to reaching their ultimate goal of ridding the Abbey of the villainous rats and their brethren. Along the way, they will need to defeat swarms of cockroaches, warrior rats and other foul beings. They will also be gaining experience and unlocking unique skills.
You’ll play out the scenarios directly on the game book instead of on multiple separate boards, much in the manner of the Sleeping Gods games. I personally love the storybook style of playing area, it seems to add a great dollop of atmosphere, as if you’re moving the characters of a story for yourself and a new adventure is only a page turn away. The maps I’ve seen look great, with crisp artwork and plenty of paths to follow and scenery that I assume your kitties will be able to interact with. It’s also part of one of the game’s other big upsides – super quick setup.
There will be a choose-your-own-adventure element to your progress, so your feline heroes will have to work together and choose very wisely indeed if you’re going to navigate the campaign successfully. The Cats of Mont Saint Michel uses Raybox Games’ Paths Unknown system – used previously in Escape From Stalingrad Z and Gates of Nifleim – wherein the direction that your heroes choose to exit a scenario decides the new page in the book they travel to. Sounds to me like there could be some replayability built into this game once the campaign is completed for the first time.
The scenarios are linked to create a complete story, with each part taking up a short gaming session of around 20-40 minutes. There’ll be little friction between you and the campaign you’ll want to continue, making this an easy game to return to over multiple sessions. The team also promise that your game progress will be simple to save and resume.
It’s worth noting that Raybox have successfully delivered four crowdfunding projects prior to this, so you’re looking at a team that knows what it’s doing. The game has just launched on Gamefound, so get straight over there and get involved. It’ll be purrrfect: www.gamefound.com/en/projects/rayboxgames/the-cats-of-mont-saint-michel