Pack the Essentials

Every cat owner knows there is one rule for when you are packing to go away: whether your trip is for business or pleasure, do not forget to pack the cat! In Pack the Essentials, players take on the role of travelers who want to bring as many of their trusty felines with them as possible in their suitcases.

If your cat is anything like the Pudgy Cat, you can be sure you will wind up collecting loads of cat toys inside your bag as well.

Collect cats and kittens, complete fun to do list goals, and work to pack your suitcase most efficently in order to get the highest number of points. How many cats can you fit in your suitcase? There is only one way to find out!

Overview

Objective

Pack the Essentials plays over 12 rounds Score as many points as you can by drafting and placing tiles. Complete To Do List Tasks, use the Pack Rat Service, collect Cat Toys; and pack cats, kittens, & matching clothing into your suitcase. The more essential items (aka cats) you pack, the more points you will score. The player with the most points at the end of the game wins.

Why should I play Pack the Essentials?

Straightforward and teachable in under 5 minutes, Pack the Essentials easy enough for new gamers and strategic enough for seasoned gamers to both have fun toghether. Each round has three simple parts. With two degrees of difficulty and multiple ways to score points, Pack the Essentials makes the purrr-fect game for cat loving players looking to dive in to a game that focuses more on strategy than luck.

How to win

You win Pack the Essentials by having the most points at the end of the game. There are 6 ways to score points: Pack Cats and Kittens in your suitcase, have unused Pack Rats at the end of the game, collect Cat Toys (the more Toys you collect, the more each Toy becomes worth), complete To Do List Goals, fill your suitcase as much as possible, and connect tiles of matching colors and have larger groups of matching colors than your opponents or The Cat Ladies Club.

Features

Drafting - New to games that involve drafting? Our simple two-step draft makes jumping in to this mechanic paws-itively simple! Pick your draft order based on if your want to prioritize a specific tile, or want to collect bonuses. Then when it is your turn, pick a tile and add it to your suitcase. Easy peasy.

Tile Placement - Pack the Essentials is a puzzle game at heart. Work to collect tiles and place them in optimal locations in your suitcase to score maximum points.

Varied End-Game Goals - Each mode (solo and multiplayer) feature 12 unique end game cards called To Do List Goals. You will only use three cards each game, which means you have 220 possible combinations of goals to achieve.

Two Degrees of Difficulty - Suitcases are double-sided with a normal and a hard mode to adjust to the experience level of the player.

A Different Kind of AI - Any game with less than 4 players will use an AI deck called The Cat Ladies Club. This is a super simple AI, which will help simulate a four player game. The AI will not score points, but will steal cats from the draft and block points from being scored later in the game. It is a great introduction for those not used to playing with an automated player. It also makes a 1 player game just as fun as a 4 player game!

21 Unique Cats - love cats? Yeah, us too. That's why each of our 21 different shaped tiles features a one-of-a-kind feline!

Still with us? Want to learn how to play?

The video below features a full-length two player game using our Tabletopia version of the game. Please note that the computer-based version of Pack the Essentials takes significantly longer to play. A typical game of Pack the Essentials using a physical copy of the game will take about 20-30 minutes (even with four people). You can get a feel for the gameplay by watching just the first few minutes or watch the full video for an indepth look.

Prefer images and text? Read on!

This will walk you through a two-player game. Full rules for each player count can be found in the rulebook.

Pack the Essentials is played over 12 rounds, each containing three parts. If you need the text in an accessible format, please check out our rulebook!

To get up for the first round, follow the diagram below.

A) Give each player a suitcase and matching cat

B) Give each player a set of reminder cards

C) Put out the kitten, pack rat, and cat toy tokens

D) Give each player 1 pack rat

E) Assign the first player

F) Set the game mat in between all players and put the round marker on 1

G) Put cat tiles in the bag and draw 4 to put on the game mat for round 1

H) Randomly select 3 To Do Lists and put them on the game mat

I) If playing with less than 4 players, shuffle The Cat Ladies Club deck and put on the game mat

Step 1:

After your have setup, you are ready for round 1. The player who has the suitcase goes first and picks their draft position first, then other players will continue to do the same going clockwise. Players can pick any draft positon that was not already taken by another player. Drafting first means you will have the first pick of tiles in step 2, but drafting later will award you bonuses like pack rats and cat toys. Pack rats are what allow you to place cats in your suitcase and cat toys will score you points at the end of the game.

Step 2:

Once everyone has picked their draft position, players should take any applicable bonuses. Then it's time to actually draft some tiles. Starting with draft positon 1, each player will select one available tile and add it to their player board.

If a draft position is vacant, as is the case with the 1st and 2nd positons in the example below, The Cat Ladies Club is activated. This is a simple AI opponent deck that will simulate other players and remove tiles (the cats got lured to their laps for snuggles). The cat ladies do not score but they will take tiles and block color bonuses later in the game. It is recommended to keep the removed tiles in piles by color off to the side for easy scoring later.

In the example below The Cat Ladies Club removed two tiles. The mint player then selected one of the two available tiles and played it clothing-side-up. This is always available. Should a player want to flip their tile and play it cat-side-up they would need to hire the Pack Rat Service in order to pack their suitcase more efficiently. To do this, the player spends one of their available pack rat tokens and then may play their tile cat side up like the magenta player did.

Step 3:

The final step of the round is the reset phase. This is where you will set everything up for the next round. Advance the round tracker one space, remove any updrafted tiles and put these with The Cat Ladies Club tiles and reshuffle The Cat Ladies Deck(if The Cat Ladies Club is in play), pull four new tiles for the next round, return the cat tokens to their players, and pass the suitcase on to the person on the left. You are now ready for round 2!

If at any point, you are unable or do not wish to play an available tile from the draft pool, you can choose to play a kitten tile instead. Kittens are smaller and take up less room, but still earn a point and do not cost a pack-rat to play. They will also be helpful for color bonuses.

Finally, at the end of round 12 your suitcase is considered fully packed and it is time to score. Player's will use the score pad provided to help keep track of all their points. Whoever scores the highest wins. For details on scoring, please refer to the full rulebook.

Ready to pack some cats?

Try Pack the Essentials on Tabletopia for FREE! Full solo and multiplayer modes are available.