Cat in the Box
A trick-taking game where your card has no color until you say so.
What it is
A fun game for 2 to 5 people, perfect for card players who think they have seen every trick. All the cards are black, so you declare a color as you play, and a shared research board records what has been claimed. Run out of legal plays and you cause a paradox, which ends the round on the spot and costs you points. First published in Japan in 2020, it reached English players as this 2022 Deluxe Edition.
What we love
- Each number and color pairing can be claimed once, so the board slowly closes in.
- With 3 to 5 players you predict your tricks up front, and hitting the number pays a bonus for your largest group of tokens.
- The joke comes from quantum physics: a card is every color until someone looks.
Honest trade-offs
- Newcomers to trick-taking may find the bidding hard.
- Matching the colors on the research board can be tricky for colorblind players, and two token colors look alike in some light.
AI summary of player sentiment
Across the tables we polled, players consistently praise the game's approachability and pacing. The most common complaint is newcomers to trick-taking may find the bidding hard..
This summary is regenerated from new reviews each week. Astra will wire the generation job to the Vercel Cron detailed in the handoff doc.
Content advisory
No content advisory.
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