How to play
The Isle of Cats is played over 5 days (rounds). On each day the cats will venture into the fields on the island and you have until nightfall to attempt to rescue them through 5 phases of play.
1. Fishing
Each player gains 20 fish.
2. Explore
Each player is dealt 7 discovery cards, they choose and keep 2, passing the remaining cards to the player to their left. They repeat this process 4 times, but the last time they will only keep 1 card.
You will then look at your 7 cards to decide which to add to your hand. The cost is in the top left corner of every card, and if you wish to keep a card, it must be paid for in fish.
You can keep as many cards as you like!
3. Read lessons
Every lesson card you kept must be placed face down on the table. Lesson cards are personal objectives allowing you to score extra points at the end of the game.
4. Rescue Cats
Now players take it in turns to rescue cats, each cat requires a basket and a number of fish. Keep going around the table until everyone has run out of baskets, fish, or passes.
When you rescue a cat, you must immediately place it on your boat, the first cat can go anywhere, but after that every cat must touch at least 1 previously played tile.
You will need to find a balance between how many cards you keep in the explore stage, and how many cats you wish to rescue in the rescue phase.
5. Rare finds
Finally, players will take it in turns to play Oshax and Treasure cards. Treasures offer smaller pieces to fill those tricky areas, and the Oshax are friendly cats that can act as any colour, they just want to have a friend!
Scoring
After 5 days, you will earn points for completed lesson cards, rare treasures and families of cats (groups of touching cats of the same colour) on your boat.
However, you will lose points for each room on your boat which isn’t filled and any rats which haven’t been eaten!
The winner is the player with the most points at the end of the game!
Explore
FAQ
Find answers to frequently asked questions and get clarifications on how specific cards work here.
Videos
Watch The Isle of Cats being played and hear from independent reviewers about their thoughts on the game.
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6 comments
Alia Norman
2nd April 2024 at 12:27 am
Do the colours of the cats on the rescue cards mean that you can only rescue that colour cat?
Frank West
4th April 2024 at 11:23 am
Hi Alia,
They do not, any rescue card can be used for any cat.
I hope this helps.
– Frank
Matt Smith
17th June 2024 at 4:33 pm
are the player boat boards assymetric? They look different, even if the layout is similar?
Frank West
17th June 2024 at 4:54 pm
Hi Matt,
While all the boat boards in the game have the same layout and shape, the positioning of the rats varies on each boat, as does the colour combinations of the treasure maps. This does change the value of each cat tile depending on the boat you have creating an asymmetric experience.
For those looking for further variation there is the Boat Pack expansion which includes completely different boat layouts.
I hope this helps!
Jon Paul Gulledge
19th June 2024 at 12:03 am
I have two questions about lesson cards and scoring. Specifically, do lesson cards replace the rules for scoring or supplement them? For example, if I have a lesson card that gives me +2 points for rats, does that lesson replace the -1 point per uncovered rat rule, or must I subtract -1 before adding +2 (resulting in a net gain of only +1 points per rat)?
Additionally, if I have that same lesson card, do rat tiles still count when scoring rooms? For example, if I have every tile covered in the dinning room, except for the two rat tiles, do I still count -5 for that room, or are the rat tiles exempt because of my lesson card?
Thanks in advance! We were split over these questions and could not find an answer anywhere!
Frank West
19th June 2024 at 10:36 am
Hi Jon Paul,
Lesson cards add to the existing scoring and do not replace it or change any rules. They should be resolved exactly as written on the card without changing anything else.
So, you will still lose points for visible rats when you have a card that gives you points for rats. In your example, the net result would be +1 per rat. Likewise, when you have a rat scoring card, it does not stop rooms containing those rats from scoring -5 points.
As it’s unlikely you will fill your entire boat, a big benefit to these cards is to negate the negative points for areas you choose not to fill, helping to balance out the penalties without having to fill every space.
I hope this helps.