Advert: This is a prototype gifted for the purposes of review. Components do not reflect the final product and are subject to change. All opinions are ours.

Catch the pigeons and avoid pesky cats in this new card game coming to Kickstarter at the end of the month! Let’s review Cat Among the Pigeons.

Key stats

2 to 6 players
15 to 30 minutes
6+ years

Publisher: Level 46 Games
Designers: Keiran Williams
Art/Design: Ian Calow

Theme/category: Animals, Card Game
Key mechanics: Set Collection, Take That

Gameplay overview

In Cat Among the Pigeons you need to collect 7 pigeons in the same colour to win. It sounds simple, but there’s a cat-ch: you can’t win while you have any sneaky cats in your hand!

On your turn you can take as many moves as you like, as many times as you like (or choose to take no actions at all):

• Play an action card and do what it says
• Discard 2 pigeons of the same colour to draw a new card
• Discard 3 cats (not 1, not 2, it has to be 3!)

There are many different action cards in the game. Some let you gift, steal or swap cards with other players. Others let you draw additional cards or rifle through the discard.

When you’re ready to end your turn, draw a card.

If at any point on your turn you have 7 of the same coloured pigeons (Rainbows count as any colour) and NO CATS, you win!

Our first impressions

Cat Among the Pigeons has super simple rules – as you can probably tell by our to-the-point gameplay overview! It’s super quick to learn and super quick to play. I’ve played it with a bunch of different people, and I think overall I’d play it more with family and casual gamers, but it also works well when gamers are looking for something lighter.

While ‘collect X cards’ can be a pretty common win condition in card games, the ‘anti-win’ Cats (which remind me of Flux creepers) add a great twist and are my favourite element of the game. Trying to offload those cats onto other players is where a lot of the interesting gameplay arises – although you may prefer to hold on to them in the hopes you collect 3 to discard. It’s quite easy to smugly give someone else your cat, only to find another player gives you a different one – and then you draw another cat at the end of your turn! You’d have a set if you’d only held on to the original one.

I love the art design, particularly of course the pigeons and cats! The designers included different types of pigeons (all slightly derpy) and cats (all slightly sassy!) – who all have names by the way!

I really enjoyed playing Cat Among the Pigeons. I would just be conscious that sometimes you can have a few turns in a row where you only draw a card and while it wasn’t normally an issue, I noticed it more in bigger/chattier groups where rounds where turns weren’t as quick.

Verdict

Cat Among the Pigeons is exactly what it says on the tin, and exactly what I was looking for: : an easy-to-play family-friendly set collector with sassy cats. It’s accessible enough for my family and entertaining enough for a game night filler (or quick one down the pub!). Family card games are a dime a dozen, but the tricky cats and quirky character design is what made this one stand out to me, and why I think we’ll keep coming back for more.

Cat Among the Pigeons is launching on Kickstarter next week, so if it sounds a bit of you click this link and register to be notified. We’ll be there as early backers!