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Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition
A Grade products may arrive with or without cellophane and may have minor cosmetic damage to the box.
B Grade products may arrive with or without cellophane and may have sustained varying levels of cosmetic damage to the box. This may include tears, dents and crushing in some cases.
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Description
Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition is the quintessential quantum trick-taking card game for 2 - 5 cool cats, where your card’s color isn’t defined until you play it! Hypothesize how many tricks you will win, and record your bid. Place tokens on the community research board as you play your hand, and connect large groups of tokens to score even more points. Plan your tricks carefully as you cannot claim the color of a card with the same number that has already been declared. Doing so would be pawsitively catastrophic as you have just created a paradox!
New Deluxe Edition features:
Supports 2-5 players
High quality geekbits-style plastic tokens
Recessed player boards
Recessed Center Research board
Score pad
And a custom plastic insert to keep Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition tidy!
Trick taking games have been around for as long as there have been cards. The whole genre started to get a little bit samey until a few years ago when some very clever and unique twists started to appear on the market. The Crew introduced cooperative gameplay with limited communications and then Shamans introduced a hidden traitor mechanism which somehow works with only three players (you can play up to five, I am just amazed a hidden traitor game works with only three players). Both are brilliant games and have reignited the interest in the genre.
Cat in the Box from designer Muneyuki Yokouchi and published by Bezier Games is a brand new trick taking game with a very clever twist. There are no colours on any of the cards but there kind of is…..confused…..keep on reading and all will be explained and I will also let you know if it’s worth your time (hint, it definitely is).
What’s In The Box?
The production for Cat in the Box is amazing. From the perfectly sized and well-illustrated box, to the great artwork and component quality, and finally to the dual layered player boards and beautiful see-through player pieces. Everything in this release has been well thought out and really gives the feeling of a deluxe game. The rules are also well written and easy to follow and you should be playing from a standing start pretty quickly.
It’s Tricky, It’s Tricky, Tricky
So what’s the twist with Cat in the Box? None of the cards have any colours on them and when you play a four you have to confirm what colour you want the four to be. You then mark off that colour and number on the main board with your player piece so that everyone knows it can’t be claimed again. Genius. Such a simple concept that I don’t know why it hasn’t been used before.
But the game doesn’t rest on its laurels there, oh no, it also has more cards than can possibly be played. You can only claim your card is one of four colours (Red, Blue, Yellow and Green) and if you still have a four card in your hand but all of the colours have a four marked off then you are stuck and you will cause a paradox which ends the round and gives you negative points.
Also, if you ever declare that you cannot follow the lead card colour you have to mark up your player board to say you do not have any of that colour at all. This could come back and hit you hard later on when you are running out of other colours / number choices.
It’s Tricky To Rock A Rhyme, To Rock A Rhyme That’s Right On Time
The game still has more ‘tricks’ up its sleeves. A staple in trick taking games is declaring how many tricks you think you will win each round based on the cards you start with. Cat in the Box also does this but with its own unique twist.
For each trick you win you score one point. If you caused the paradox you score minus one point per trick. If you managed to win the number of tricks you declared (without causing a paradox) you score one point per token of your colour in the largest group of your tokens on the main board. These would be where you have declared a colour and number. So you will want to declare similar numbers and get as many bonus points as possible without exceeding your trick target. This scoring feels like a little area control mechanism and I love it.
Paradoxically Speaking
Trick taking games do not normally work too well at two, although there are a few specialist games that do it well, The Fox in the Forest being one. Cat in the Box has a two player variant which means you can play this game and have a good time with just one other person. It takes away the trick predictions but adds some random colour / numbers combinations which are already used at the beginning of the game. I would still prefer to play with three, four or five but it is nice that the game has the rule set for two. One way in which we have increased the fun at two players is to play more rounds than the recommended two.
Is This Game Puuuurrrrfect?
There is nothing to complain about with this game. In fact the complete opposite is true, I need to shout about how good it is. If you like trick taking this is one you must have in your collection. If you are not sure about trick taking buy this and you will be converted. I love the art, the components, the game mechanisms and the excitement from playing it. I would have preferred maybe more innovation from the two player variant (because I have been spoiled by the rest of the game) but I will happily play it at two anytime.
The only question that remains ‘is the cat in the box’????
My review for Cat In The Box is available here so please go and have a read if you want to know if this is the kind of game you would like (hint it definitely is).
This is a How To Play for this amazing Trick Taking game so if you want to learn the games rules without dipping too much into the actual rule book and youtube videos then this is the blog for you.
Set Up
How many players are playing Cat In The Box? This is the most important question at this point. Depending on the number of players you may need to exclude some of the cat cards. For a full game of five players you use all of the cards, if you have four players you exclude all of the 9 cards, three players you exclude the 7, 8 and 9 cards and for two players you exclude the 6, 7, 8 and 9 cards.
You also need to set up the main board (research board) according to the number of players. For five players you use the purple research cards and the main board needs to be extended to its full width. For four players you can use either the white or purple side of the research cards but you must use the observed tokens on the number 9 position (these tokens look like little cat heads and are used to block numbers). Once again the main board is fully extended. For three players you can use either the white or purple side of the cards but the board is not extended if you use the white side. Don’t forget to block off any numbers from 7 onwards if you use the purple side. Finally for two players use the white side only and block off the number 6 positions.
Shuffle the cat cards and deal them equally to all players (ten cards for a two, three or four player game and nine cards for a five player game). Also give each player a set of player tokens and a player board. Each player then places one of their tokens on the four X’s on their player board. Choose a starting player and away we go.
Dealing Cards
With your freshly dealt hand of cards you need to look through them and decide which one you want to exclude. The best way to decide is to look at how often you have the same number repeated. You do not want too many of the same number as there will be a possibility of you not being able to play it later on in the round which will cause a paradox. Everyone discards one card to a discard pile.
Predicting Tricks
All players then predict how many tricks they will win between one, two and three for a four or five player game or one, three or four for a three player game. They then place one of their tokens on the relevant space on their board. This is relevant to end round scoring and will be explained further on.
Playing Cards
The starting player will play a lead cat card and will declare what colour it is (not red at this point). They will then use one of their tokens to cover the colour / number option on the research board.
All other players must, in clockwise order, play one of their cat cards and follow the lead colour. When they play their card they also cover the equivalent number on the research board.
Once all cards have been played the player whose card was the highest wins that trick and takes all of the cards into a pile in front of them.
The winner of the previous trick starts the next turn by playing a new cat card and declaring its colour. You cannot choose a colour / number combination that has already been marked by a players token.
Unable To Follow The Lead Colour
This continues until a player says they cannot follow the lead colour at which point they remove their token from their player board for that colour revealing the X. This indicates to all other players that this particular player has declared they have no more cards of that colour. Everyone can now use this information to their advantage.
Playing The Trump Colour
If you choose not to follow the lead colour you may choose any other colour including the trump colour Red. The red cards beat the lead colour and will win the trick if it is the only red card played (if more than one red card is played the highest one will win the trick). From this point on you may start a round by declaring a Red colour for a card. (note: you may also start a turn by declaring a Red card if it was impossible for you to play anything else).
Paradox
If it becomes impossible for a player to play any of the cat cards from their hand because all of the numbers are taken then they must declare a paradox. This immediately ends the round.
End Of Round
The other way to end a round is for players to play all but one of their cat cards. In either eventuality it is time to go to scoring.
Scoring
Players will score one point per trick they successfully won. However if a player caused a paradox they will lose one point per trick. Then you will check to see if you won the same amount of tricks as you predicted and if you did you will score one bonus point per player token in your largest group of connected tokens (orthogonally) on the research board. This bonus is not valid for the player who caused the paradox.
End Of Game
The start player of Cat In The Box is moved to the next player and the game continues until all players have had one turn of being the start player. You then add everyone’s scores up and the player with the highest score is the winner. Ties are broken by the player who scored the most points in the last round.
Two Player Variant
The two player game follows almost all of the same rules except there is no prediction of tricks at the beginning of the game. Also, after each player is dealt ten cards you reveal three of the remaining cards and place a ‘third’ players tokens on these numbers on the green row. If numbers are duplicated you place them on the green and yellow rows. If the number is the same for all three cards you place them on the green, yellow and blue rows.
Conclusion
I hope this has helped you to learn the rules and how the game plays. Obviously I would always recommend people use the official rule book to learn the rules in depth but this blog should give you a really good flavour of how the game flows.
I absolutely love the game and if you want to find me on twitter to discuss how brilliant Cat In The Box is please do @boardgamehappy.
That concludes our guide on how to play Cat In The Box. Did this help you? Let us know your thoughts and tag us on social media @zatugames.
Zatu Score
You might like
- Its trick taking but not as you know it
- Can be taught in just a few minutes
- Quality production
- So much innovation
- Cats (look at that cover)
Might not like
- Two player variant is just okay compared to the rest of the game
- One game is never enough
- Causing a paradox when you have the perfect number of tricks