Cat in the Box Board Game Review

Year Published: 2020/2022

Players: 2-5

Playing Time: 20-40 Minutes

“If it’s not a horrible game and it has cats in it, it’s going to blow up.”

That was a quote from a friend of mine upon playing Cat in the Box, and I can’t really disagree. It seems a bit depressing to me that the theme arguably has more to do with a game’s success than the quality of its gameplay. But such is life.

This doesn’t immediately damn games with cutesy themes, but it does mean some are skating by on the strength of their aesthetics, not their depths.

I’m in marketing, so this isn’t news to me. Marketing works on you and I alike. And it’s what leads to seemingly tautological statements like that of my friends above.

Ready for the good news? Cat in the Box is excellent. What’s more, it’s thematic in deeply meaningful ways in a genre that has no business bringing its theme to life so profoundly. Here, the cats actually add to the gameplay rather than merely providing window dressing for the proceedings.

Trick-Taking and Quantum Physics

Cats aren’t actually the theme. Science is. Specifically, the famous Schrodinger’s Cat thought experiment, which makes certain points about quantum mechanics.

Cat in the Box is a trick-taking game. If you’ve played Hearts or Spades or Euchre, you’re in the right territory.

In the game, your cards fall into one of four suits. But in your hand, they’re all white numbers on a black background. That’s because their suit isn’t known until it’s “observed” (played on the table). The thematic tie-in here is more than cursory, because once you play a red 6, for example, no one else can. It’s been identified.

And there are more cards dealt than can be played in most rounds, often with five of a single number dealt when only four can theoretically be played. Thus the constricting begins.

Additionally, once you declare that you don’t have any of a suit left in your hand, you’re saying that none of your white numbers are actually blue, for example. Which limits you further. This decision may help you win some tricks in the short-term, but could cost you long-term.

Points are tied to tricks won, with additional points available when you match your predicted number of trick wins. But if you’re the first who can’t make a legal play (causing a “Paradox” in the game’s thematic parlance), you’ll score negative.

Paradoxical Tensions

The elements create an emergent tension, because hitting one’s bid and scoring more points often pushes you toward riskier territory in terms of being the one who triggers the paradox.

Thus the central tension is established. And it’s good tension, because there are no clear answers.

Even better, because the spatial board representing legal plays remaining slowly fills up throughout a round, the tension mounts as rounds continue. There’s never any large climax until the round ends, which is great, since everyone’s just a bit on edge until that point.

Player Counts and Possibilities

The game’s higher player counts seem more interesting to me, with many tricks seeming to be perfunctory at lower counts. This can occasionally happen at any count. Not every decision is uniformly interesting.

But many still are, such as what you discard at round’s start. Do you keep a set of three 5’s, for example, hoping to chain together a string of adjacent numbers (which relates to bonus scoring)? But this also brings more risk. Player psychology plays an important factor, as it should in many of the best card games.

The strategy will seem opaque and unintuitive to some as well. A traditional card game this is not. It shares some similarities with classic trick-takers. But it’s a touch removed from them in its gamification of the spatial board that accompanies play. Don’t be surprised at just as many confused expressions as “a-ha” faces on gamers who aren’t familiar with trick-taking tropes.

Luck and Strategy

This is a card game, so card draw matters. Luck will win or lose you some games. However, the robust possibilities introduced by non-suited cards leave more wiggle room than is initially obvious.

Those I’ve seen who haven’t enjoyed this are those who are at the short end of bad beats and cause the paradox. This by itself wouldn’t be enough to raise their ire, but it often feels as though luck handed them their bad beat, not anything flowing from their strategic play.

This is both true and not (hey, we’re on theme!). It’s true because sometimes the player before you will have three cards in their hand, will have no reason to play one over the others, and will randomly choose the lone card that means you have to trigger the paradox. This is pure luck. You need to be ready for it to happen if you want to enjoy Cat in the Box.

It’s not true, however, because much of the game’s strategy is playing early tricks in such a way that you give yourself “outs,” so to speak, to make it less likely that the unfortunate scenario above will play out for you.

Punitive, capricious beats in card games tend to make me laugh. So long as that isn’t the only thing they’re about, and I can meaningfully mitigate my chances of a bad beat, I’m going to be pleased. But others who need a higher degree of control to enjoy their gaming may feel some whiplash at times.

Cat in the Box – Conclusions

The criticisms above, if they can be called that, mostly speak to the game’s audience. I’ve played numerous trick-takers that invert one or more classic rules, and add one or more others, to form something that feels familiar yet new.

But many of them seem to be shuffling ideas around somewhat arbitrarily. They don’t form a coherent whole that, for me, is any deeper or more interesting than the classics I grew up with.

Cat in the Box is an exception. I am engaged by its thematic integration, and how those mechanics manifest as honest-to-good decision points that force me to consider opponent psychology and goals as well as my own tolerance for various forms of risk and reward.

And there are cute cat pictures on the box and cards, if that’s your thing.