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Welcome to another Isle of Cats review, this time for The Isle of Cats Big Box bundle. This bundle from Zatu has a lot of content, some of which I have also reviewed separately, so please feel free to read those reviews on my blogging account to aid your decision-making. See here all expansions of Isle of Cats. Each expansion will be tagged separately if you would rather buy them one by one, or as the core box!
The Big Box
The first thing in the Isle of Cats Big Box is the big box itself! This is a very cleverly designed box and insert with compartments perfectly designed to fit the base game and all of the expansions. I love big box storage solutions. When I love a game and collect all the expansions, the amount of space they take up becomes a concern. Being able to condense the multitude of boxes into one and speed up the setup feels like a good investment.
The Isle of Cats big box inserts are wooden and you will need to glue them together yourself. This was a little tricky at points but I got there in the end! Once the insert has been assembled it is easy to follow where everything goes. The inserts make the set up of the game so quick. You are ready to play within a couple of minutes.
The box lid size is the same as the original Isle of Cats game, the difference being that the box is a lot deeper. There is a how to, with photos included in the box of how to pack it all in correctly, so it’s easy to keep everything in place by following that. It’s so quick to set up as the compartments double as containers during the game. All you have to do is pop the compartments and bags onto the table and take pieces from there during game play as needed.
The compartment for the lesson modules is labelled with each lesson letter so you know exactly where to put each one and it’s easy to find the lessons you are looking for.
Kittens And Beasts
The next item included in the bundle is the new Kittens and Beasts expansion. In The Isle of Cats Kittens and Beasts there are 3 different expansions included in the box – Kittens, Beasts and Events. The Kittens expansion was the most straight forward addition to the game, very quick and easy to add in and helped greatly, giving ways to fill gaps that would have previously been lost if the treasures had run out. They are also absolutely adorable so that put a smile on all of our faces whilst playing!
When playing with Events included, tiles are drawn at the beginning of the game and placed over the day numbers that Vesh’s boat travels along. On each day the drawn event tile must be resolved. I enjoyed this module very much. It shakes up the gameplay adding new ways to score and altering gameplay enough to keep The Isle of Cats fresh without unweighting the whole game.
The Beasts expansion comes with some stunning artwork on the tiles. It’s simple to add in as you can only take a beast on the first turn, after that play continues in the same way as before.
I love the Kittens and Events modules and would highly recommend this expansion to anyone who loves their copy of The Isle of Cats.
Late Arrivals
Also included in the bundle is The Late Arrivals Expansion. This is one of the earlier expansions and adds the 5th and 6th players. It also adds in more lesson modules. This feels like a very necessary expansion especially because you can now play with more players. Having more lesson modules to mix and match is important for variety and keeping the game fresh. More cat tiles and treasure tiles are another welcome part of this expansion. Can we ever get enough of the gorgeous artwork on these feline lovelies? I think not!
Overall
I have found when adding any of the expansions to The Isle of Cats that the more cats/treasures etc that are added the better. It increases the probability of being able to fill those awkward areas with more options of tile shapes to choose from. The more options you have, the more of a surprise when the cat tiles are pulled from the bag each turn.
If you are looking to add the Isle of Cats Big Box to your collection and are missing the included expansions then I’m sure this bundle will not disappoint!
