Thank you for this video. It helped me a lot to get a feel for the game. Very nice game indeed ! I thought at first 1h30 is much too long but it was entertaining. Great performance.
Very excited for this! Visually this game looks beautiful! I can’t wait to get my hands on the game and start playing. There’s definitely a lot to do in this game and it’s going to provide lots of different play styles to focus on!
I love how he talks so invested. I feel like im watching an english cooking show but with fantasy cats. Just got my copy and late arrivals today. My group is going to love this
At time index 45:35 you added a red cat for the red player and forgot to take a treasure which could have covered 3 rats and won the red player the game. Also, another option was at 1:24:47 time index, you could of used the L-shape treasure to do the same thing (by the red cat). The videos were great! I can't wait to get it!
Got the game and tested a 5 players setting: everyone loved it, thanks for that amazing game ! I just have one question that was raised during our play : the card that says "Gain 1 fish for each unique coloured cat on your boat" has been understood by the majority as "Gain 1 fish for each cat you have who is the only one in that colour", arguing that if it was by number of colours, the text would read something like "Gain 1 fish for each (cat tile of) different colour"/"Gain 1 fish for each colour on you boat (excluding treasures)". But in you demo, it seems it's the second meaning. So, if I have on my boat 1 blue cat tile, 1 orange cat tile and 3 green cats, I'd get 3 fish, not 2 fish, right ? Thank you !
I'm glad to hear you guys had fun, you can find clarifications on cards here: thecityofkings.com/games/the-isle-of-cats/card-clarifications/ I believe you want card 090/091 (it's in number order)
AT 1:25, couldn't you have used the treasures to cover up the rats in the middle of the boat? Sure you couldn't reach the 3 you forgot about at the end, but 3 in the middle give you the same 5 total rats, right?
I'm not sure if I missed this during your explanation so I had a quick look at the rules and didn't see anything there but do cats have to be placed next to like coloured cats after the first one? Really looking forward to the game by the way - enough to think about while still being relatively accessible and simple to teach.
Hey John, they do not! Each tile (apart from the first) has to be placed adjacent to an existing tile, but it can be any tile. Whether that is treasure, a different colour cat or something else! I hope that helps!
@@CityofGamesHQ Thanks a lot. I thought so but then when you kept saying things like blocking off this family over here I was a bit confused. Best of luck for the campaign, hope it all goes well and is not overly stressful!
@@johnholmes9730 Ahh, it may not be what you mean, but just to be clear, using green cats as an example: You do not have to place a green cat next to a green cat, but! You will only score for green cats if they are touching other green cats. So while you are not restricted in placing them next to each other, you may want to place them next to each other if you want to score points! Hopefully that makes sense?
Looks nice! Quick tip. The cost in the top left corner is not clear enough by miles. It does need more clarity I think. I had to even pause the video to see the costs.
Hi Danny, I expect this is a result of the filming/lighting. Unfortunately I had to put a temporary setup together fairly quickly and it's more blown out than I would like. The game files have been tested with people who have visual difficulties and the costs never came up. With that said, once the Kickstarter is live you'll be able to see full quality cards and if you still believe this to be a problem please let me know.
In the second round Red should have started cheap and then finished with a 5 fish cat, given that they could only manage to get three cats if two of them were cheap, starting their turn by going big hurt their strategy
Mistakes like this kind of amaze me. It's like... he put up three hours of quality footage of talking, explaining and general demo-ing that seems to all have been done in a single take, and that's the biggest thing he slipped up on? It's actually kind of amazing, I'd have probably tapped out with a sore throat about half an hour ago. :P
Question about the public lesson... would the red played have gained an additional 2 points for playing the public lesson? Or, as a public lesson, is it not considered 'theirs'?
Public Lessons aren't considered to be owned by a player, once they are played they sit in the public lesson pool so the player wouldn't get the extra 2 points in this instance. I hope this helps.
I've got a question about one of the cards! I've got the game in French and there's this card that says “défaussez une carte tradition déjà jouée, gagnez 4 poissons” which would be "throw away one lesson card that has already been played to win 4 fish". We don't understand what you mean by "already played", because the private lesson cards are always played at the end of the game, but it's not specifically mentioned that it should be a public lesson either so it's not clear... Or does it mean a private lesson that has already been payed for and that's put face down on the table? Please help us, because we've never used these type of cards because it's not clear to us. Thank you in advance!
Hi Fzgig, unfortunately the translations of the game are managed by other publishers so I am not familiar with the exact wording in each translation. While they should read the same as the English version, sometimes words are slightly different due to the ways the languages are read. In regard to "discarding a lesson card that has already been played", this is to confirm you have to have purchased the lesson card before you can discard it. For example, if you are in the middle of the card draft, have a lesson card in your hand and have not paid to keep it, then you could not discard that card. The easiest way to view this is, if you have paid for the lesson card, then you can discard it to meet the requirements. I hope that helps.
I love this in theory, but I can see too many in my core group getting total AP with all those lesson cards. Maybe if there were a rule limiting each player to like 3 of them...
Hi Dan, while every persons AP is different, the game has been tested with very heavy AP groups many times and the flow of the game has been designed to reduce this as much as possible. While there are a lot of decisions to make, a lot of this happens during the drafting which happens for all players at the same time, while the individual decisions of playing cards and taking tiles is built around "lots of small actions", which has stopped AP from being a big issue in the game. Personally, from hundreds of tests I've been very happy with how minimal the AP has been in the game, but all groups are different!
Hey Alex, there is no limit. However, there is a lesson card that gives you points for having exactly 6 lesson cards, so it is possible they had that card.
I'm still watching so it might get explained later, but it seems players pay for the cards they wish to keep while they are hidden from the other players. And you aren't forced to play all cards you keep in that particular round. Doesn't that make it super easy to cheat and pay too little for the cards? It seems quite tricky to keep track of how much a person paid over 5 rounds and how much all their cards are worth.
Hi Monkeyunit , there isn't anything further that will be explained about this. It is true you purchase your cards, and that they remain hidden until played. Just like many other games that have screens, hidden information, or other similar elements, if a player wants to cheat they can, but it somewhat defeats the point of playing a game.
I can't think of any other game where you pay costs for hidden information. Maybe cheating sounds a bit harsh but player can easily make mistakes. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash this game cause I really want it to be great. It was just something that stood out to me and it feels weird.
@@monkeyunit4533 It's not a problem! It's certainly something that I considered during the design process, but I concluded that it really wasn't an issue, it became more of a theoretical problem and it never came back from playtests. People can cheat, but they can cheat in many other ways in many games, people can make mistakes, but again I expect there are few times where people play games without the odd mistake here or there. In the end it makes for an enjoyable experience with interesting decisions, and that, for me, is a good thing.
@@CityofGamesHQ Just out of curiosity, why the decision to let players pay for cards they keep, and not pay for the cards when they play them? I can see someone picking a cards in round 1 that might or might not be usefull in the end. Having to make that decision at that point seems tricky.
@@monkeyunit4533 there are actually a lot of reasons for this, I'll just list a couple though if that's OK! 1) It drastically reduces AP, letting people store loads of cards, and keep all their fish until they are ready to play them adds huge amounts of decision points in every phase, especially the cat rescuing phase. The goal is to make all the long, critical decisions happen simaltaniously between all players during and at the end of the draft. This is one of the reasons there is very little AP in the game. 2) A big part of the rescue cat phase (in the multiplayer at least) is about identifying how many cats you want from the pool and how many you think others will be taking. If people aren't paying for cards upfront, you have no idea how many fish they could spend on rescuing cats. For example, I might have 2 * Oshax cards which cost 10 fish. These would be played after the rescue phase, but now you don't know if that 10 fish is for rescuing cats or for playing cards. This adds a lot randomness/guessing to the game, removing interesting decisions and assumptions. 3) The game really pushes planning, picking strategies and adapting, this is why no 2 games play out the same way. By keeping all the cards it can make it easier to achieve goals and less interesting overall.
A play video without showing how to set it up is just so damn useless. And the rulebook doesn't tell you which cards count as "discovery" cards to put in the deck, so I guess you just never know... Another shitty kickstarter board game. Sigh.
Hi there, I'm very sorry you feel the need to use bad language on here, I would be more than happy to help you, as would the entire community. But in future I would request that you ask in a polite fashion or I will have to remove your comments. This game is designed for children as well as adults and as such want to keep things friendly. If you look at the components list in your rulebook, you will see it shows you all of the components. If you look at the various cards in that section you will see the blue back cards are labelled as the discovery cards, they are listed next to the other types of cards which have different coloured backs. You will also notice on page 2 of the rulebook that the where to find us section lets you know how to contact us with questions should you need it. I apologise if this has been confusing for you, but should you need further help you are welcome to contact us using the details on page 2 of the rulebook. Thanks, - Frank
@@CityofGamesHQ It says "150 discovery cards." I have more than 150 blue backed cards. "If you look at the various cards in that section you will see the blue back cards are labelled as the discovery cards, they are listed next to the other types of cards which have different coloured backs." Why lie about that? Seems weird.
Pimpdaddyspaghettios I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so aggressive to someone who is trying to help you understand something? I would appreciate it if you could try to be a little friendlier if you would like further help. The rulebooks "150 discovery cards" only show the contents for the standard game. As a Kickstarter backer, you have the Kickstarter contents in side your game box. You will find a piece of paper saying "Kickstarter Pack" on it, that shows you the additional content. Hopefully this helps you understand.
Thank you for this video. It helped me a lot to get a feel for the game. Very nice game indeed ! I thought at first 1h30 is much too long but it was entertaining. Great performance.
Very excited for this!
Visually this game looks beautiful! I can’t wait to get my hands on the game and start playing. There’s definitely a lot to do in this game and it’s going to provide lots of different play styles to focus on!
Thanks for taking the time to check it out!
I love how he talks so invested. I feel like im watching an english cooking show but with fantasy cats. Just got my copy and late arrivals today. My group is going to love this
Just popped in to get a rule clarification. I love your enthusiasm for the story. Absolutely love the game. Thank you!
Thanks for the tutorial, I’m bringing this game to our group tomorrow to try it out.
I hope you have fun!
@@CityofGamesHQ So much fun :)
At time index 45:35 you added a red cat for the red player and forgot to take a treasure which could have covered 3 rats and won the red player the game. Also, another option was at 1:24:47 time index, you could of used the L-shape treasure to do the same thing (by the red cat). The videos were great! I can't wait to get it!
Looks super fun!! May have a favourite cat already 😍
That's great to hear! But I don't think you're allowed to have favourites ;)
Got the game and tested a 5 players setting: everyone loved it, thanks for that amazing game !
I just have one question that was raised during our play : the card that says "Gain 1 fish for each unique coloured cat on your boat" has been understood by the majority as "Gain 1 fish for each cat you have who is the only one in that colour", arguing that if it was by number of colours, the text would read something like "Gain 1 fish for each (cat tile of) different colour"/"Gain 1 fish for each colour on you boat (excluding treasures)". But in you demo, it seems it's the second meaning. So, if I have on my boat 1 blue cat tile, 1 orange cat tile and 3 green cats, I'd get 3 fish, not 2 fish, right ?
Thank you !
I'm glad to hear you guys had fun, you can find clarifications on cards here:
thecityofkings.com/games/the-isle-of-cats/card-clarifications/
I believe you want card 090/091 (it's in number order)
@@CityofGamesHQ Awesome ! Thanks for the quick answer !
AT 1:25, couldn't you have used the treasures to cover up the rats in the middle of the boat? Sure you couldn't reach the 3 you forgot about at the end, but 3 in the middle give you the same 5 total rats, right?
It's possible, but I think I used them for filling 2 rooms instead. I'm not sure it was possible to do achieve both things.
I'm not sure if I missed this during your explanation so I had a quick look at the rules and didn't see anything there but do cats have to be placed next to like coloured cats after the first one? Really looking forward to the game by the way - enough to think about while still being relatively accessible and simple to teach.
Hey John, they do not!
Each tile (apart from the first) has to be placed adjacent to an existing tile, but it can be any tile. Whether that is treasure, a different colour cat or something else!
I hope that helps!
@@CityofGamesHQ Thanks a lot. I thought so but then when you kept saying things like blocking off this family over here I was a bit confused. Best of luck for the campaign, hope it all goes well and is not overly stressful!
@@johnholmes9730 Ahh, it may not be what you mean, but just to be clear, using green cats as an example:
You do not have to place a green cat next to a green cat, but! You will only score for green cats if they are touching other green cats.
So while you are not restricted in placing them next to each other, you may want to place them next to each other if you want to score points!
Hopefully that makes sense?
@@CityofGamesHQ That makes much more sense. Thanks a lot!
At the end of each round, if there are cats left on the island, why do we have to remove them? Can’t we just add new ones to the island?
Looks nice! Quick tip. The cost in the top left corner is not clear enough by miles. It does need more clarity I think. I had to even pause the video to see the costs.
Hi Danny, I expect this is a result of the filming/lighting. Unfortunately I had to put a temporary setup together fairly quickly and it's more blown out than I would like.
The game files have been tested with people who have visual difficulties and the costs never came up. With that said, once the Kickstarter is live you'll be able to see full quality cards and if you still believe this to be a problem please let me know.
In the second round Red should have started cheap and then finished with a 5 fish cat, given that they could only manage to get three cats if two of them were cheap, starting their turn by going big hurt their strategy
45:45 you forgot to take a tresure when the red player cover up the red tresure map.
You are correct! I think I was too busy trying to explain things to people, thanks for picking up on this.
Mistakes like this kind of amaze me. It's like... he put up three hours of quality footage of talking, explaining and general demo-ing that seems to all have been done in a single take, and that's the biggest thing he slipped up on? It's actually kind of amazing, I'd have probably tapped out with a sore throat about half an hour ago. :P
That Said, I am already sold on this game.
Wonderful news!
Question about the public lesson... would the red played have gained an additional 2 points for playing the public lesson? Or, as a public lesson, is it not considered 'theirs'?
Public Lessons aren't considered to be owned by a player, once they are played they sit in the public lesson pool so the player wouldn't get the extra 2 points in this instance.
I hope this helps.
@@CityofGamesHQ Thank you! Very helpful!
I've got a question about one of the cards! I've got the game in French and there's this card that says “défaussez une carte tradition déjà jouée, gagnez 4 poissons” which would be "throw away one lesson card that has already been played to win 4 fish". We don't understand what you mean by "already played", because the private lesson cards are always played at the end of the game, but it's not specifically mentioned that it should be a public lesson either so it's not clear... Or does it mean a private lesson that has already been payed for and that's put face down on the table? Please help us, because we've never used these type of cards because it's not clear to us. Thank you in advance!
Hi Fzgig, unfortunately the translations of the game are managed by other publishers so I am not familiar with the exact wording in each translation. While they should read the same as the English version, sometimes words are slightly different due to the ways the languages are read.
In regard to "discarding a lesson card that has already been played", this is to confirm you have to have purchased the lesson card before you can discard it. For example, if you are in the middle of the card draft, have a lesson card in your hand and have not paid to keep it, then you could not discard that card.
The easiest way to view this is, if you have paid for the lesson card, then you can discard it to meet the requirements.
I hope that helps.
@@CityofGamesHQ that’s all I needed to know! Thank you!!!
I love this in theory, but I can see too many in my core group getting total AP with all those lesson cards. Maybe if there were a rule limiting each player to like 3 of them...
Hi Dan, while every persons AP is different, the game has been tested with very heavy AP groups many times and the flow of the game has been designed to reduce this as much as possible. While there are a lot of decisions to make, a lot of this happens during the drafting which happens for all players at the same time, while the individual decisions of playing cards and taking tiles is built around "lots of small actions", which has stopped AP from being a big issue in the game. Personally, from hundreds of tests I've been very happy with how minimal the AP has been in the game, but all groups are different!
Isn't there a limit of 6 private lessons per player? I think someone got that wrong in another TH-cam playthrough.
Hey Alex, there is no limit. However, there is a lesson card that gives you points for having exactly 6 lesson cards, so it is possible they had that card.
I'm still watching so it might get explained later, but it seems players pay for the cards they wish to keep while they are hidden from the other players. And you aren't forced to play all cards you keep in that particular round. Doesn't that make it super easy to cheat and pay too little for the cards?
It seems quite tricky to keep track of how much a person paid over 5 rounds and how much all their cards are worth.
Hi Monkeyunit
, there isn't anything further that will be explained about this. It is true you purchase your cards, and that they remain hidden until played. Just like many other games that have screens, hidden information, or other similar elements, if a player wants to cheat they can, but it somewhat defeats the point of playing a game.
I can't think of any other game where you pay costs for hidden information. Maybe cheating sounds a bit harsh but player can easily make mistakes.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to bash this game cause I really want it to be great.
It was just something that stood out to me and it feels weird.
@@monkeyunit4533 It's not a problem!
It's certainly something that I considered during the design process, but I concluded that it really wasn't an issue, it became more of a theoretical problem and it never came back from playtests. People can cheat, but they can cheat in many other ways in many games, people can make mistakes, but again I expect there are few times where people play games without the odd mistake here or there.
In the end it makes for an enjoyable experience with interesting decisions, and that, for me, is a good thing.
@@CityofGamesHQ Just out of curiosity, why the decision to let players pay for cards they keep, and not pay for the cards when they play them? I can see someone picking a cards in round 1 that might or might not be usefull in the end. Having to make that decision at that point seems tricky.
@@monkeyunit4533 there are actually a lot of reasons for this, I'll just list a couple though if that's OK!
1) It drastically reduces AP, letting people store loads of cards, and keep all their fish until they are ready to play them adds huge amounts of decision points in every phase, especially the cat rescuing phase. The goal is to make all the long, critical decisions happen simaltaniously between all players during and at the end of the draft. This is one of the reasons there is very little AP in the game.
2) A big part of the rescue cat phase (in the multiplayer at least) is about identifying how many cats you want from the pool and how many you think others will be taking. If people aren't paying for cards upfront, you have no idea how many fish they could spend on rescuing cats. For example, I might have 2 * Oshax cards which cost 10 fish. These would be played after the rescue phase, but now you don't know if that 10 fish is for rescuing cats or for playing cards. This adds a lot randomness/guessing to the game, removing interesting decisions and assumptions.
3) The game really pushes planning, picking strategies and adapting, this is why no 2 games play out the same way. By keeping all the cards it can make it easier to achieve goals and less interesting overall.
If you can wear a microphone next time, it would help a lot.
I got very upset at all the sub optimal plays here...
A play video without showing how to set it up is just so damn useless. And the rulebook doesn't tell you which cards count as "discovery" cards to put in the deck, so I guess you just never know...
Another shitty kickstarter board game. Sigh.
Hi there,
I'm very sorry you feel the need to use bad language on here, I would be more than happy to help you, as would the entire community. But in future I would request that you ask in a polite fashion or I will have to remove your comments. This game is designed for children as well as adults and as such want to keep things friendly.
If you look at the components list in your rulebook, you will see it shows you all of the components. If you look at the various cards in that section you will see the blue back cards are labelled as the discovery cards, they are listed next to the other types of cards which have different coloured backs.
You will also notice on page 2 of the rulebook that the where to find us section lets you know how to contact us with questions should you need it.
I apologise if this has been confusing for you, but should you need further help you are welcome to contact us using the details on page 2 of the rulebook.
Thanks,
- Frank
@@CityofGamesHQ It says "150 discovery cards."
I have more than 150 blue backed cards.
"If you look at the various cards in that section you will see the blue back cards are labelled as the discovery cards, they are listed next to the other types of cards which have different coloured backs."
Why lie about that? Seems weird.
Pimpdaddyspaghettios
I'm not sure why you feel the need to be so aggressive to someone who is trying to help you understand something? I would appreciate it if you could try to be a little friendlier if you would like further help.
The rulebooks "150 discovery cards" only show the contents for the standard game. As a Kickstarter backer, you have the Kickstarter contents in side your game box. You will find a piece of paper saying "Kickstarter Pack" on it, that shows you the additional content.
Hopefully this helps you understand.
This aged real well.