Cat Cafe

Cover Art - Cat Cafe
From the Publisher:

Can you make your corner of the Cat Cafe the most appealing to it's feline residents? Be sure to fill your cat towers with toys, food, little houses and comfy places to rest. Roll the dice and then draw your features, to make your corner.. purrfect.
BGG Link https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/279135/cat-cafe
Designer(s) Lee Ju-Hwa, Giung Kim
Publisher Alley Cat Games
Player Count 2 - 4 *Probably can go a little higher if you have more dice
Estimated Playtime 20 min
HomePage https://www.alleycatgames.com/cat-cafe

Game Review

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Journal Entries

January 23rd, 2023

A couple of weeks ago, my friend Alpal suggested that I give a roll-and-write game called Cat Cafe a try. She has a knack for finding simple games that I really enjoy, so I looked up the rules and we had a few rounds on Board Game Arena. And once again, Alpal has found a game that I absolutely love!

The gameplay of Cat Cafe is really simple. You roll a number of dice (players + 1), and you use the number on the die you chose and the remaining ‘communal’ die to place objects in cat towers. From there, Cat Cafe becomes a min-max type puzzle where you try to place specific items in the right spots to get the highest score.

20230123 - Cat Cafe - A cute bit of fun
Cat Cafe is a cute bit of fun with deceptive depth

There are lots of ways to score. You can go for the majority of yarn balls on each tower. Link groups of mice toys together for more points for longer chains. You can also place cat bowls with lots of different objects around them for points. Don’t forget to put butterflies through the tower to earn paw prints to manipulate your dice values later.

It sounds like a lot to keep track of, and Rabbit and I definitely needed a couple of games to hit the high scores that Alpal was getting. But the beauty of Cat Cafe is that a long game is only 10 minutes, so needing to play a game or two as trial runs isn’t a big ask.

20230123 - Cat Cafe - Finally gave Alpal a challenge, but not enough to topple her win streak
Took some of us a while to get the hang of scoring, but Alpal still has the Cat Cafe crown!

I’m definitely considering getting a physical version of this game for Rabbit and I to play together. It’s quicker to set up than ‘Welcome To’, quick to get through, and a lot of fun. Also, if the pics of Enzo wasn’t a big enough clue, the theme hits for both Rabbit and I which always helps!

February 27th, 2023

Being tired, I was hoping for a game we already knew. Something we had yet to play much to still feel like we were playing something different. Recently we gave Cat Cafe a try, and this was quickly suggested.

So, we jumped in and had a lot of fun creating towers for the cat cafe. That is the theme, after all!

20230227 - Cat Cafe - Reminders on how things work is only a hover away
Even wiht tooltips, sometimes you need to see how scores can chain for the rules to click

In the first game, Rabbit took the lead early being the person that remembered scoring combos the best. Cat Cafe isn’t complicated, but there are tactics for building high scores. Alpal and I needed a reminder that the first game quickly refreshed us.

Then for the rest of the games of Cat Cafe, Rabbit continued to mop the floor with us. In most games, there is a fair mix between the three of us for the number of wins. Last week, it was the day of the Rabbit though!

Cat Cafe is quick and fun, and I am still tempted to hunt down the physical version to play on the table with Rabbit. Even if I will likely get my butt kicked – it’s like Cartographers but in reverse!

20230227 - Cat Cafe - Simple but satisying roll and write
Simple but satisfying, with a definite ‘one more go’ quality to the gameplay