The Isle of Cats Expansion Boat Pack

To use The Isle of Cats Boat Pack you will need to have The Isle of Cats base game, which if you are reading this and you don’t own it, I couldn’t recommend picking up a copy highly enough! Presuming you do already own The Isle of Cats here’s what you can expect from this expansion…

Boats And… More Boats

Boats are what you can expect because boats are what you will receive! The boat pack is simply 6 new double-sided boats for you to choose from when setting up the game. The original boats were all of the same shapes with just the coloured maps in different places.

These new boats are all unique and all offer a different challenge. Surprisingly, this really altered the gameplay and made me have to re-think tried and tested strategies to adapt to the new designs.

The boat boards are double-sided just like in the base game with one side being dedicated to the Family mode/Solo mode.

You’re Gonna Need A Bigger Boat…

One boat for example has a large area of boat missing in the middle, that you cannot put cats/treasure etc on. Getting around the sides of the centre cut out was an interesting challenge. The size of the boat is increased around the edges to account for this.

Several of the boats have 1 or more of the maps positioned in the corridor. 1 boat has 3 maps all positioned very closely together.

The variety I felt these boats bring to the game made it a welcome addition. It also gives the ability to give a trickier boat to more experienced players while newer players stick to the original ones. We found these mixed in perfectly.

Overall Thoughts

If you love The Isle of Cats the way it is but would enjoy increasing the challenge for your group of gamers, then I would highly recommend The Isle of Cats Boat Pack. It is not something you would introduce until you have played the base game enough times to be ready to reach for that new challenge but when you do it’s fun and refreshing! You can expect the exact same quality component-wise as the original boats.

The Isle of Cats Boat Pack fits in nicely with the other expansions with a pic’n’mix feel if you have purchased all the new content. This builds on the mix and match lesson modules that we are already used to and with so many options it really does mean it’s a different game every time.