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I’ve wanted the Isle of Cats for a long while, since I saw it advertised on one of Zatu’s weekly emails (which are always very helpful and informative). I was given the game for Christmas and played it several times with family and friends. It’s a competitive game where each player is fitting cats in the form of shaped pieces into a boat after rescuing them from the Isle before Vesh arrives. There are rats to get rid of, rooms on the boat to fill and families to keep together.
Firstly the box is lovely, beautifully designed with wonderful artwork. The instructions (or Rulebook) for the game is printed on glossy paper in full colour and well written so easy to understand from the outset. However there is also a video for those who prefer to watch that instead of read rules - I guess I’m old school so I prefer to read what to do, and have the rules to hand for any queries during game play.
Three of us started by playing the simple Family version which was a great introduction. It took us a while to play as it was new to us all. We all loved the cats, the way they’re all different and have such great expressions! We also enjoyed the fact that until the final scoring we couldn’t be quite sure who had won.
Four of us then played the full or Advanced Mode and realised why it’s more complicated with the need for baskets to rescue cats, the inclusion of the Oshax (white cats with red stripes), discovery cards and lesson cards. We enjoyed playing this even more than the simpler version because it was more in-depth, trying to work out which ’lessons’ to try to accomplish and which weren’t worth the time or trouble. Again it was fun scoring at the end to see who had won. In a way we didn’t mind, as we’d all just enjoyed playing the game, trying to fit the different shaped cats into the boat and hopefully managing to complete the lessons.
I love learning about and playing new games and the Isle of Cats is no exception. It’s brilliantly and imaginatively designed, beautifully drawn and well made with good quality card and wood game components.
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