Cat-astrophe

We were looking forward to getting Catastrophe -- we were watching old videos of Lil' Bub, even the documentary Lil' Bub & Friends, and then got a ping from Lil' Bub's human about this new game with a tribute to Lil' Bub.  Had to have one.  

The box opening was fine.  There's a gorgeous full-sized full-color booklet about famous video cats, including a whole page about Bub.  The cards had those famous cats, and other characters.  A lovely production.  They clearly loved these cats.

But then, the gameplay was essentially about sending cats to their doom.  Spending their nine lives, and trying to avoid the Grim Reapurr, to be exact.  That would have been okay, pushing other cats down the tower so you can be the last cat standing.  But the action cards were almost entirely: gain/lose/steal a life unless you roll 3-6 or 4-6 or 5-6.  Sure, you can spend your yarn balls to reroll dice, which was cute, but it's hard to get more.  

The catastrophe cards were mostly dexterity challenges, the kind of thing we don't enjoy due to Anne's shaky hands.  They were fairly inventive.  One was to set up a stack of 3 tiny yarn balls then all players take turns bopping a die into the stack ... if the stack falls, everyone loses a life.  Another challenge was to balance a card on the back of your hand and do stuff, another was to have a staring contest while meowing at each other (pretty hilarious).

But whatever they tried to add, the game could only move from space 9 down to 1 or wherever the Grim Reapurr was.  Go up/down one or two, roll dice again.

We gave this one to the couple in the family who introduced us to Exploding Kittens.  Maybe it will be a better fit for them.  They sounded excited to give it a try.

This one was a bit of a head-scratcher.  We really wanted to like this one, but it only took a few moves to dislike the vibe.  We thought it might be cooperative or focus on helping cats avoid getting hurt.  The tributes to the famous cats was top notch.  The game play was just not our kind of thing.

I really should go back to watching youtubers try out games before buying them myself.  But the Bub and the hype made it look like a safe bet.  And it probably will be a lot of fun for a lot of people.  Part of  challenge of trying so many games is learning about ourselves: what we did and didn't know about all the elements we do and don't enjoy.

 



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