Catventures on the streets of Kyoto
Becoming a cat 🐈 and roaming around the city, having all kinds of adventures… Now this a board game theme I am happy to see! 😼 ⛩️Kyoto No Neko is about exactly this! Players will be cats from different neighbourhoods competing with each other, racing to gather 5 bells by completing missions, fighting other animals or befriending them. It’s all about exploring the city and uncovering tokens and doing skills tests. 💪
Each game you choose 5 missions randomly (or play one of the available scenarios). These could be things like befriending a neutral neighbourhood cat, searching a trash can or hunting mice. There are more crazy things like having to drink from a fountain, then marking your territory twice, or running to the road and dodging the bicycles. 😄
Gameplay is very simple: 🧐 you can walk around according to your speed, flipping tokens you encounter face up. Every token is something you can interact with by doing a skill test. Climb a sakura tree, befriend a butterfly, escape the dog - there are lots of things. Each of them shows a number goal you have to reach. You roll a die 🎲 and add your skill to it - either succeeding and claiming the token ✔️, or failing ❌ but improving your skill in exchange (also either you or your prey might run away). There are uses to all tokens, but you are mostly searching for the mission specific ones to get a bell as well! 🎐 As players gather bells, the kittens mature into cats, getting more movement and improving their skills.
💭 It’s important to highlight that this is a family game, about the same weight level as Takenoko, but with lots of dice rolling. It is a lighthearted and quick game perfectly suited for children. While we usually prefer our games with more strategy and control, we find ourselves smiling as we play it, as the theme is just so fun and the art is absolutely amazing. My favorite feature is the grandma and grandpa cycling around the town: each time you step out onto the street you draw a card to see how much they move - and you don’t want to get run over. 😹
