ScottVee Gaming

We did a quick run through CVS to pick up some NyQuil and DayQuil a few weekends ago, and Anne always likes to go through the "fun aisle" on the way out.  That's the aisle with gifts and "As Seen on TV" stuff and weird random items.  This time there was one little card game on the shelf.  Just one.  It was Ninja Cat Cucumber Attack, by Moon Sprocket Games. It had cats, so we figured we should try it. When I flipped through the little rule sheet, I was disappointed to see yet another "slap the card" game.  But we had a chance to sit outside under the gazebo this afternoon and give it a shot. Yes, it's a slap-the-card game, like the basic game of War but with cats and more variety.  Start by dividing the deck equally, and whoever gets all the cards is the winner.  Take turns throwing down one card each.  If you see two of the same number or cat or weapon, you can slap the deck and take the whole pile.  Or a "sandwich" of two matching cards ...

This is an interesting card game.  The deck has tunnel cards,  two home cards, and a batch of cat cards.   You set up a 4x4 grid of cards on the table and start with the two home cards and any two cat cards placed as shown in the tiny rule book. Then, each turn has two possible moves: rotate a tunnel card or take a tunnel card from the edge, push all cards in the row or column to fill the empty space, and add the new card. The goal is to build a path of tunnel cards from a cat to a home.  Take the cat card and score it later.  That's it. It was a fun session, with an unusual feel.  A few times, we accidentally connected a home to the other home or a cat to the other cat.  Duh.  But it was easy to learn.  A little too often, your move will just set up the other player to finish a path in their next move.  It's hard to really hide a path that's almost done. This could be a keeper or another donation, hard to tell.  We should try ...

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. ...

A thread came up on one of the board gamer groups on Facebook where someone asked for a list of board games which have good implementations as game apps, and Cat Lady came up on that list.  We had to check that out. The graphics were perfect, with some cute f/x and music added, and it was easy to get up and running.  Just hit Play then Classic Game.  This defaults to a single computer opponent, but you can add up to three.  It also allows a second human player (and possibly more, we had no reason to check). Against the computer player, the game goes very quickly.  It's over before you know it, and since I tend to pick easy cats to feed (worth lower points) and forget to get toys, I lose about 75% of the time.  It all flows nicely: check your cards and see what you need, maybe feed a cat or two, then swipe some new cards into your hand.  The app organizes the cards very nicely and does all the calculations s you can see that your pick added 5 points, or...

We brought Cat Lady back over from my place and it was more fun that we had remembered.  Sure, there are a bunch of different scoring options to keep in mind: feeding the cats, the catnip, the costumes, who has the most different types of toys and such. The overall flow of taking a row or column of 3 cards, and then having the cat token say which row or column is not available all went very smoothly.  The Spray Bottle card lets you move thte cat token to another row or column when you really want those cards that are blocked. I put together a handy little score sheet to help wrap up those final numbers. You can download the PDF here. Since all the food and lost cat cards end up on the discard pile as you trade them for food tokens and Stray Cats, you have to shuffle well or you will get a grid of just food.  Sometimes there are too many cats and not enough food, other times no cats show up for the first five or six turns. I suppose you could really study the available car...

I took a quick first ride on Meow Express and it reminded me of using the jetpack to get around my Minecraft world. So I thought it might be fun for a while before bed. Except that I can't seem to go more than 10 seconds without crashing.  Every balcony kills you, every rooftop below kills you.  Even touching a cloud kills you. I guess there are things I am supposed to be picking up, but it would be nice if I could not die for a few seconds ... argh! I can't see myself spending hours trying to get better at this.  It is definitely cute, but the frustration level is a bit out of my range.

Hey, I finally got the Lookout for 3T, and it's cute to see the cats use the binoculars to look around.   Here are two shots of my island combined: This gives a general idea of the activities that can be built, and how many cats are running around goofing off and dropping hairballs.  The yoga mats are one of my favorites, and there is a restaurant and lookout point further off to the left.  The decorations are available, and the animations of that cat crafting the blueprints and items is one of the highlights of the whole game, but the process takes too many resources and time for my taste. The only other build icon I see is another Whale Movers for 15T.  My Skip Ad tickets have run out, so progress is going to be even slower.  They added a mini game where a cat tries to catch goodies while swatting balls away -- I'm not impressed, and watching the cat get knocked out at the end is not my idea of fun.   On the upside, they added a way to sen...

Back on Kitty Cat Resort, I misread the cost of upgrading the Whale Movers.  It was not 400 M, but 400 K.  To get to the new island you have to level the facility up to level 130, which starts at 400 K per level and ends up about 2 M per level, so I estimate the total cost is about 200 M.   As you tier up the Whale Movers, pieces get added to the model.  First, it's cute enough that it's a raft on the back of a whale.  As you build it up, first it adds a canopy, then some crates, then some more crates, then it's ready to go sailing off to the new island. Whale Movers, ready to go.   Head back to the Island Info icon to launch.   Here comes the new island.    All your cats and buildings move with you, and you can now add 7 new facilities and up to 20 cats.  The first new facility is a Yoga Shack for 2 B. Okay, I logged back in the next morning and picked up hairballs until I had the 2 B to spend.  Sure enough, the cats walk over...

It's not such a leap to go from cat-themed card games to cat-themed Android apps.  Apps are so easy to find and get, and try out for free with no harm done.  I will try not to go too far down the rabbit hole, but here is another one I found over the weekend, after trying others and not being impressed.  Kitty Cat Resort by FatherMade games.  This is an idle-time app, so expect to earn a few points for poking around at first, then building things and watching the points go up to ridiculous levels over time ... even earning points while you are away. What makes this one work is the smoothness of the cat animations and the good humor of it all.  You are just trying to build an island resort to attract as many cats to live there as you can.  There are a few basic buildings you can build.  You start with a Fishing Hut where -- I am not kidding -- the cats sit down with fishing poles and pull fish out into the bucket before walking off and popping out a hair...

Apps cover such a huge range of ideas, styles and target audiences, from hobby projects to multi-million-dollar media properties.  The games can be rock solid or full of bugs or holes, they can be dead serious or some of the weirdest, funniest things you will ever see, some are meant for laughs while others cater to the most specific interests or fetishes. This weekend, Anne & I were in the mood for cats and kittens.  After looking at the previews of a few games, I started poking at one called Kitten Match, which was quite simply a match-3 puzzle game full of adorable kittens.  Duh.  Part of my brain asked why bother with something so trivial, but we were enormously entertained going through level after level with little cat dialogs in between.  It really is just a series of match-3 puzzles, but as usual, the strange obstacles and power-ups are a fun mix.   Technically, the whole home repair storyline and dialog is just a super-graphical representationa...

 I got a few games in the past week.  Some have been written up already, but here is the batch: Cat Lady is yet another card game with cute cats everywhere.  This one is a bit more involved than Scram.  You work from a 3x3 grid of face-up cards, where each turn, each player can take a whole row or column, then move the cat token to block a whole row or column from the next player's turn.   You can get cat cards or food cards.  The food cards get traded in for food cubes, which go towards feeding those cats.  There are also cat toys, catnip and cat costumes, which score at the end of the turn.  And there are Lost Cat cards: you can trade two Lost Cats in for 2 VP (victory points) or one stray cat.  Each stray cat has a special power like "get 2 VP for each black cat you feed".  Here we are, halfway through a hand. The main 3x3 grid is in the middle, stray cats below them.  My cat cards are on the left, Ann's are on the right....

SCRAM is a card game of cute cats, trying to score the best combos.  We goofed the rules the first few rounds, thinking we could have more than one active pile.  But there should be just one active cat, and when you score a cat you move it to your "Cat tree". The basic gameplay is: draw a card (from draw pile or one of the face-up cards in the "Pet Shop"), then either 1) add a card to your active cat if it's one more than the top card showing, or 2) throw a 0-point "stray cat" on an opponent's pile to slow them down, or 3) if you really have no moves, turn in your full hand and drew 5 new cards. Now, a stray cat can be immediately blocked by a Scram card, and you can "bank" a cat at any time by moving that pile to your cat tree and starting a new pile.  There are a few STEAL cards in the deck that let you take th top card from an opponent's stack if you can play it right away. Some of the cat cards have special rules printed on them, ...

We're back with a new playthrough, this time it's a card matching game called Wizard Kittens.  So, the idea is that you are kittens trying to clean the master wizard's lab while he's away, so you are supposed to match ingredient cards to the combinations shown on curse cards to clear the curses and score the points ... before the boss gets back. Setting up the game is a bit of a pain the first time, about 7 different types of cards that have to go in the right places.  But resetting for a second game is much easier, since they are already sorted by type, more or less.  I don't really like games with long setups, but it had a nice clear guide for what goes where.   Here's a look at a game in progress.  Anne's cards are up top facing left, my cards are bottom left, and the curses we are trying to clear are in the middle.  Each turn, a player gets one of four moves: draw a card, discards two cards, move a card to another player's hand, or swap two cards. ...

 CAT CRIMES was an unexpected surprise that we found in the kid section at Barnes & Noble.  It turned out not to be a head-to-head game but a series of logic puzzles to sort out with the cute little props provided. The rules say to take turns and read the clues to each other and keep track of who solved more cases, but it turned out we both had more fun solving the puzzles together.  The cards range from Beginner to Expert difficulty.  The clues get increasingly more cryptic as the difficulty goes up.  A beginner clue might be "Ginger is seated next to Tom Cat", while an expert clue might be "No cat with blue eyes is seated next to a claw mark" ... there are two cats with blue eyes, two claw marks ... but there always does end up being one solution that fits all the clues.  Flip the card and see if you figured out which cat did the deed.  The Expert ones are seriously tricky.   The fact that there are two seats at each side of the cat tab...