Become the Hero Cat You Were Destined to Be!

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The Animals Need Your Help!

In Adventure Cats, you play as heroic cats trying to rescue animals and bring them safely back to one of your castles. You will also gather valuable gems along the way that help you on your journeys and give you even more points at the end of the game.

But watch out! A dangerous dragon is out there, trying to steal your gems and prevent you from rescuing animals.

How Does It Play?

Adventure Cats is a strategy board game for 2-4 players ages 5 and up. On your turn, you drop gems onto adjacent tiles (like a trail of bread crumbs), beginnning with where your cat miniature is. Then, your cat hops along your gems and ends on a tile adjacent to the last gem you placed. (Adults might recognize this as a Mancala-style mechanism).

If your cat landed on a tile with an animal token, you get to rescue that animal. Hooray! You get to place it in one of your castles. Each of your castles only has room for 2 animals of specific types (there are mice, sheep and pigs). Once a castle has all the animals pictured on it, the castle is considered filled.

After rescuing an animal, you also get to add a gem to your personal supply, which allows you to move even further on your next turn.

At the end of your turn, you get to do a dragon attack! You can move the dragon a number of spaces equal to the number of filled castles you have. The goal is to move the dragon through other players' cats. When you do, the dragon steals one of their gems! (And the cat has a fire marker placed next to it, which prevents the dragon from attacking the cat again before that player's next turn. No need to keep picking on the same player).

You get points from filled castles, rescued animals, and gems in your possession at the end of the game. Whoever has the most points wins!

Co-designed with my Daughter, Verna.

In January 2024, my family sat down and we each made some goals for the year. One of my daughter's goals was she wanted to design a board game with Dad. Of course this melted my heart and we started brainstorming the same day.

The game went through a lot of iterations and playtesting with the family. Fast forward to November 2024, and Verna and I are ready to share her game with the world.

Fun for Both Kids and Adults.

We wanted this game to be one that our whole family could play and enjoy. At the time we started designing, my son was 4 and my daughter was 6 (now 5 & 7).

My son can hang in there through the whole game and have fun, though he does tend to ignore some of the strategy. His favorite part is moving the dragon and getting other players' cats.

My daughter pretty well has her head around the strategy and does really well. Her favorite part is rescuing the animals and arranging them in her castles.

The game is also great for kids because it plays quick. We can play a 4-player game in less than 30 minutes.

My wife and I, meanwhile, can play this game with just us two and have a great time. It plays a little like a positional abstract. It's not a heavy game by any means! It's plenty light for kids to understand what to do on their turn and figure out concepts like, "I think I should go for that 2-point mouse instead of the 1-point mouse...but I better stay away from the dragon, too!".

But there is some depth of strategy to explore for adults as well. For example, in the last game we played, my wife could have gotten me with the dragon on her turn, but instead decided to move it on top of an animal that she could see I would want based on the state of my castles. It was a move that was not obvious to me and made me rethink my plans on my turn.

A Nice Tactile Experience

I went out of my way to choose components that are just fun to handle and play with. Having some experience gaming with kiddos, I knew the components are half of the appeal. So we've got a nice, sturdy box, some cool animal tokens, some heavy, marble-style gems (but not perfectly round so they don't roll away), plastic cat and dragon minis, and some cool semi-transparent fire markers. All fun to handle and nice to look at.

And to be honest, I think it's a great bang for your buck when it comes to print-on-demand indie games!

Now Get Out There and Adventure!