The Isle of Cats

1.Setup

• The island goes in the middle of the table; the two areas on either side are the fields, the left one and the right one.
• Vesh's boat starts on space 5 of the day track.
• Common treasures go below the island: 5 of each shape with 1 or 2 players, 8 with 3 players, 11 with 4 players. Once they run out, there are no more.
• The 6 Oshax go below the common treasures.
• The supply holds the wooden cats and the 1 and 5 fish tokens.
• Shuffle the Discovery cards into a face-down deck; the permanent basket tokens go next to it.
• The Discovery Bag holds all the cat tiles of the five colours and all the rare treasures, but neither the Oshax nor the common treasures.
• Each player receives a random boat and a permanent basket, green side up. Every boat has 7 rooms, with 19 printed rats and 5 treasure maps, one per colour.
• Choose the first player at random. Starting with them, each player picks a colour, takes the wooden cat of that colour and places it on the island's turn order track, in turn order.
• 1 to 4 players, ages 8 and up.

2.How to play

• The game lasts five days. Each day starts by filling the fields, then goes through five phases: fishing, exploring, lessons, rescuing cats and rare finds.
• Filling the fields: the first player draws from the bag and places 2 cats per player in each field, that is 4 per field with 2 players, 6 with 3 and 8 with 4. A rare treasure drawn goes below the island, next to the common treasures, without counting towards the total: keep drawing.
• Fishing: every player gets 20 fish from the supply.
• Exploring, the draft: the first player deals 7 Discovery cards to each player. Keep 2 face down in front of you and pass the rest to your neighbour; repeat twice more, and the last card you receive completes your hand of 7. Pass to the left on days 1, 3 and 5, to the right on days 2 and 4.
• Exploring, buying: each player keeps the cards they want, as long as they pay in fish the cost shown in the top left corner of each one. The others are discarded face down, so nobody knows what was kept.
• Lessons, blue cards: public lessons are placed face up and read aloud; if one asks you to choose a colour, put a wooden cat of that colour on it. Other lessons are kept face down, fanned out next to your boat, so everyone can see how many each player has.
• Rescuing, green cards: going round in turn order, each player secretly picks the rescue cards they will use and lays them face down; then all of them are flipped together.
• The total speed of these cards reorders the island's track: the fastest player moves to the front, the slowest to the back; players with equal speed stay in the order they were in.
• Then, in turn, each player rescues one cat or passes, and more turns follow until each player has passed or the fields are empty. Rescuing a cat takes a basket and fish: 3 in the left field, 5 in the right one.
• A permanent basket serves once per day and is flipped after use; a regular basket serves a single time in the whole game, then goes to the discard pile; a pair of broken baskets counts as one regular basket. Rescue cards played but unused are discarded at the end of the phase.
• Rare finds, brown cards (Oshax) and yellow cards (treasures): in turn, one card per turn, until everyone has passed. An Oshax immediately befriends a family of your choice, marked with a wooden cat of that colour: from then on, it also counts as a cat of that colour.
• Anytime cards, purple, can be played at any moment of the day; if two players want to play one at the same time, the order on the island's track decides.
• End of the day: cats nobody rescued leave the fields and return to the box, treasures stay below the island, and Vesh's boat moves forward one space. Unplayed cards stay in hand, with no limit, and unspent fish are kept; permanent baskets are flipped back to their active side for the next day.
• Placing a tile: every cat, Oshax or treasure you get goes onto your boat at once; if that is impossible, you cannot take it. You may rotate and flip the tile; it must fit entirely inside the boat, lined up with the squares, without overlapping another tile. The first tile goes anywhere; each following one must touch, along a side, a tile already placed.
• Treasure maps: placing a cat on one of the boat's five treasure maps of its own colour immediately gives you a common treasure of your choice. Another tile may cover the map, but without this bonus.

3.Scoring

• Rats: 1 point lost per rat still visible on the boat.
• Rooms: 5 points lost per room of the boat with at least one empty square left.
• Families: at least 3 cats of one colour joined by their sides. A family of 3 cats is worth 8 points, of 4 cats 11, of 5 cats 15, of 6 cats 20, of 7 cats 25, then 5 more points per additional cat.
• Rare treasures: 3 points each; common treasures score nothing.
• Lessons: reveal your lesson cards; each one completed scores its points.
• Public lessons: each one scores its points for every player who completes it.
• Rulebook example: 2 visible rats (-2), 4 unfilled rooms (-20), four families of 3 cats and one of 5 (47), one rare treasure (3), 13 points of lessons and 18 of public lessons, for 59 points.
• In Marquoir, enter the number of rats, unfilled rooms, families of each size and rare treasures; families of 7 or more cats and the lessons are entered as points.

4.End of the game

• When Vesh's boat reaches the hand symbol, at the end of the fifth day, it is time to set sail and score.
• The highest total wins. A tie goes to whoever has more fish left; if that is equal too, the tied players share the win.

House rules and pitfalls

• A tile may cross walls and spread over several rooms. A treasure may cover rats.
• A tile showing a cat and a kitten counts as a single cat.
• Common treasures of one or two squares are also called small treasures.
• Taking a treasure is always optional, and there is no limit to the number of cats in a field.
• A card can only be played in the phase meant for it: a lesson drawn after the lessons phase waits for the next day, and is of no use on the last day.
• The game has 38 lesson cards: 14 core lessons, always used, and three modules of 8 cards, A, B and C. With expansions, you always play with exactly three complete modules.
• A promotional Oshax or rare treasure goes in the Discovery Bag and is drawn like a rare treasure; after the game, choose the 6 Oshax for the next one and put the others back in the bag.

Variants

chosen when starting, the scorer follows

Frequently asked questions

The box

Released

2019

Age

Ages 8+

Designer

Frank West

Artwork

Dragolisco

Publisher

Lucky Duck Games

Mechanics

DraftingTile PlacementGrid CoverageSet CollectionSolo Play

Contents

• 1 island board, 4 player boats and Vesh's boat
• 85 cat tiles, 17 in each of the five colours, and 6 Oshax tiles
• 44 common treasures and 25 rare treasures
• 150 Discovery cards
• 30 wooden cats, 42 fish tokens and 10 permanent baskets
• The solo cards and 18 Family cards
• 1 Discovery Bag and 1 score pad

Expansions

• The Isle of Cats: Late Arrivals
• The Isle of Cats: Kittens + Beasts

score sheets for this game →

• Tiny Towns
• Potion Explosion
• Blokus
• Cluedo
• Kingdomino
• Lotto