The Isle of Cats

A race against Lord Vesh turns cat rescue into a surprisingly tense tile-laying puzzle, with every rescued feline competing for precious room aboard your boat. Set in the whimsical world of Squall’s End, the action centers on saving colorful cat families from a doomed island before the villain arrives. Its warm illustrated presentation and playful premise keep the mood light, but strong scores demand careful planning, efficient packing, and a willingness to adapt when the draft refuses to cooperate.

Each round has players choose lesson cards that determine turn order, grant actions, and shape longer-term scoring goals, then spend fish and baskets to bring cats aboard. Cat tiles come in awkward, varied shapes, so fitting them onto the grid of your personal vessel feels closer to a compact polyomino puzzle than simple set collection. Keeping same-colored families connected earns valuable points, while rooms, treasures, rare cats, and mystical Oshax creatures create additional scoring opportunities and difficult placement decisions. The challenge lies in balancing immediate rescues against lessons that may set up a much stronger endgame, all while avoiding the rats left in uncovered boat spaces.

What makes the adaptation engaging beyond a single match is its assortment of solo content, including rotating Rescues that periodically remix objectives and rules, seasonal leaderboards, and ten scenario-style challenges with two difficulty settings each. Some variants fill the boat with treasure, loosen normal placement restrictions, or impose unusual cat behavior, making familiar systems feel meaningfully different rather than merely random. Fifteen achievements provide another reason to revisit the island as players improve from basic rescues to more demanding score-chasing runs. Fans of Calico, Cascadia, and other thoughtful tabletop puzzle games should feel immediately at home, while newcomers get a friendly-looking introduction to drafting and spatial strategy that still has plenty of bite for experienced board-game players.