Way Too Many Cats!

Way Too Many Cats! Deep Dive

What the Community Thinks About Way Too Many Cats!

Reviewers are split on Way Too Many Cats!, a 2024 card game from Weird Giraffe Games for 1 to 6 players with a playtime of about 52 minutes. The most enthusiastic take comes from Tom Vasel of The Dice Tower, who gave the game an 8 in a Kickstarter retrospective and called it one of the publisher's best titles. Vasel praised its concept of collecting kittens and toys alongside cats and placing them on a grid, describing it as having "some really interesting concepts," and also noted that the game ranks lower on BoardGameGeek than its quality seemed to warrant.

The critical view comes from Alex Radcliffe of BoardGameCo, who scored the game 2.5 out of 5 in a family-friendly roundup. Radcliffe said the core concept was "pretty decent" and said excitement to play it quickly ran into a table that was hard to read. Scoring objectives sit on individual cards, and the iconography and color palette made it difficult to see what was happening at a glance. In a later Gen Con 2025 retrospective in BoardGameCo, Radcliffe returned to the title and said it gave players "too much" of the combination-based scoring, "being a little too chaotic."

Core Mechanics That Define Way Too Many Cats!

Drafting Cats, Kittens, and Toys

Each round, players choose between piles of kittens and toys or piles of cats, then pair up what they take. Radcliffe explained in BoardGameCo that players are "actually choosing both," with the system determining how much of each type they receive. Toys help fulfill the objectives on cats, and kittens can either score on their own or be placed into specific spots that trigger the rewards of other cats. This layered drafting is the feature that Tom Vasel of The Dice Tower highlighted when describing how Weird Giraffe Games added kittens and toys to a familiar grid-building formula.

Tableau Building and Cat Scoring on a Personal Board

Players gather cats onto a personal player board, and each cat carries a scoring metric in its top left corner. Cats also belong to types that score in different ways: some are simply worth points, while others reward adjacency, so placement matters as much as acquisition. Vasel summarized the core loop as "collecting cute cats and putting them into a grid," and the board is where the game's spatial puzzle takes shape. Radcliffe noted that this structure asks a lot of players, who must keep track of the cats they want, the kittens and toys they need, and the conditions on each card.

The Way Too Many Cats! Experience

Cute Theme and Satisfying Collection

The game's appeal begins with its theme and its collection loop. Vasel's enthusiasm rests on the pairing of a charming cat theme with the kittens-and-toys concept, considered one of Weird Giraffe Games' strongest designs. Radcliffe's first review also described initial excitement about the core idea as one eager to explore before the table became crowded with information. For players who enjoy optimizing a personal board, the steady task of acquiring cats and fitting them together creates a clear sense of progress.

Visual Overload and Shared Frustration

The more critical experience centers on reading the table. Radcliffe reported that the scoring objectives, the four scoring types of cats, the kitten and toy abilities, and the top left corner conditions combined into something hard to comprehend at a glance, saying the iconography was not intuitive and that the player aid next to each seat did not make the symbols obvious. Radcliffe stressed that the frustration was shared: everyone at the table reached the same conclusion, framing it as a group experience rather than a personal one.

What Makes Way Too Many Cats! Stand Out

A Fresh Take on Grid Building

Vasel's central praise is that Way Too Many Cats! adds something to a crowded genre. In The Dice Tower, Vasel acknowledged that many games involve putting things into grids, but argued that this one stands apart because the grid becomes a place to fulfill objectives as well as arrange pieces. Vasel also praised the publisher's track record and encouraged viewers to try the game, suggesting it deserves more attention than its ranking suggests.

Solo Opponents for Players Who Want More Challenge

Radcliffe's first review noted that the game includes four or five solo opponents, each offering a different challenge, presenting these modes as the answer for players who can get past the visual load of a shared table, since they allow engagement with the card set without managing a full table of competing players. Alongside the competitive game, the solo modes give the title more replay paths than its multiplayer reception alone might suggest.

Potential Drawbacks

Too Many Scoring Objectives Spread Across Individual Cards

The most consistent criticism is that scoring is spread across many sources. Radcliffe said the objectives live on individual cards, which made it hard to form a clear sense of what the table was doing. In BoardGameCo, Radcliffe described the game as an attempt to reward players for combining things for maximum scoring, a goal felt to be pursued to the point of chaos. The combinations that make the design appealing to some players can feel overwhelming to others.

Iconography and Color Palette That Hinder Visual Parsing

In BoardGameCo, the iconography and color palette are identified as the main barrier to enjoyment. The top left corner conditions, the four scoring types of cats, and the kitten and toy abilities all compete for attention, and the symbols did not pop out as clearly as desired. Because this information is needed throughout play, the friction affects every player at the table, not only newcomers.

If You Enjoy Way Too Many Cats!

Reviewers did not provide a direct list of comparison games for Way Too Many Cats!, but Radcliffe discussed several other drafting and placement titles in the same roundups that suit a similar audience:

• Spirits of the Wild: a two-player drafting game praised in BoardGameCo for offering a lot of content at an accessible price.
• Timbertown: a two-player tile-structuring game, described in BoardGameCo as a solid choice for players who enjoy building with tiles and planning ahead.
• Tuliko: a tile placement game from Pandasaurus in which players pursue variable scoring objectives; Radcliffe in BoardGameCo appreciated its point-scoring variability but felt it offered limited variety over repeated plays.