Cat Between Us Review: UCATS

[music] [music] >> Hey everybody, I'm Tom Vassal. >> And I'm Chris Yee. Today we're taking a look at a game called Cat Between Us. I don't even actually know what the name means. This uh between you and I there are millions of cats at any given point. Scientists know this. Yeah, your cat's hiding in the house and you're putting out lures lores layers to to draw them out.

I think it's the theme of this game. This is actually a reprint. I've taken a look at the original game. This is a newer version uh from The Op in which you are modifying values and keeping cards in your hand, which incidentally is a whole genre of games. Yeah. So, let's take a look. At the beginning of a round, you are going to flip the top card of a deck.

So, this deck is full of cards that match these six colors you can see in front of you and that go from zero to five. But you'll flip the top card of a deck and you'll look at the number down in the corner here. It's 15. So, that's going to be the target number for this round and you'll put that disc there.

You're then going to pass cards out to people, deal from the deck. The number of cards that you get is determined by the number of players in the game and by how many times you've won. So, at the beginning of the game when no one's won, if you're playing a four-player game, everyone will get six cards.

But if I win the first round, then I will be getting seven cards while everyone else would still get six. Now, the way the game works is you're going to take your cards and then one at a time, players are going to go around the table and put a card underneath any of the colors. Orange doesn't have to go underneath orange, it can go underneath red.

And you're going to keep going till every card has every one of these colors has two cards and only two cards underneath it. At the end of that, you're going to take the cards that you have left in your hand cuz you won't have played all of them. For example, a four-player game, each person will have played three cards.

We start with six, so I'll have three left over. These are both green cards and so they're worth the value here. They're both worth three, that's six. The blue card is worth five. 6 + 5 is 11. And so, my marker, let's say I'm the green player, goes here on 11. And you're trying to get as close to the blue marker without going over.

Whoever gets to that will move up one card on a shelf. In fact, if two people do it, they'll both move up. Remember that has them draw more cards the next time and realizing that having more cards, let's say I had to keep four cards left over, now I have a red card that's worth six. So, six Now, my number would be 17.

Of course, maybe I want a higher number. The target number might already be up here at 27. So, then here I might want a couple yellow cards cuz they're 10 points each. So, whoever's the closest without going over. Everybody goes over, then whoever is the closest to after having gone over will move up.

And this continues until you have either played through seven rounds, in which case everyone who's the farthest up wins, or until someone gets to the end. In that case, that person or people are the winners of the game. >> [music] >> In full disclosure, Chris has designed a competitor to this game. Sure.

>> Soda Jerk is a little bit like this. It is a little bit of that. Yeah, you speculate what the values of something are going to be. This one's all face up. Yeah. So, you see from the beginning as people kind of play things out. And I and and it is kind of fun to be able to laugh when someone places a, you know, a big number card.

They place a five under red and you go Oh, I know. Especially later on, once this game has a very good catch-up mechanism. Cuz having an extra card is a lot, and so you're sitting there going, "Okay, I have four cards I got to keep. Three reds. There's a zero underneath the red. I'm feeling good. The number is nine." Someone puts a five.

Your red cards are now worth 15, and you're just like, >> [snorts] [groaning] >> Yeah. "I hope everyone goes over now. That's my only chance." Yeah. And it's just not that serious of a game, which is fun, because I would rather play this with a group of people who when a a card gets played out there, everyone goes, "Oh, no." You know, rather than someone who plays it stoically and with poker faces.

That would make this game actually less fun, I think. Yeah, it's definitely It's not even so much a take-that game. I mean, it is, but you're not doing it on purpose. You're just making the colors you don't have in your hand the numbers you don't want. If the If the target number is high, and I have a green card, I want I want my I want the numbers to be high.

Yeah. So, if I put a five in the green, I'm like, "Yeah." Then you put the zero, and I'm like, "Oh, no." [gasps] It could have been better, yeah. >> You know, I mean, cuz I only have one green. Now I got to figure out what I'm going to do. I was hoping green would be nine or something like that. Yeah.

It It's not a particularly complex game. It's definitely a kind of game that I almost wouldn't teach aside from just saying, "We're just going to play this, and you'll After one round, everyone will instantly understand the game." And it's funny because you could make that a demonstration round and not make it count.

But also, if someone accidentally wins it, you know, like you said, it has that Yeah, I mean, it has this advantage. Yeah, what do you want to call it? A catch-up mechanism or just It feels less like a catch-up. It doesn't feel like pulling back You know what I mean? It feels more like as you're doing better, you have to you have to be playing better uh as you advance through the rounds.

And it's a nice feeling of catch-up mechanism, rather than something blatant. So, yeah, I think it's well-structured. The only negative I would say about the game I By the way, I like how it looks a lot. And it has about cats, but still. The only negative thing I would say about the game is I wonder if you play the full seven rounds because no one's winning and that can often happen because you'll win the first game then it's harder for you to win the second then I win the first second game >> People kind of going to catch up pretty evenly, yeah.

>> happens. It I think seven might be a little a little longer than I would want. The game is what does it say here on the box? 25 minutes If you're playing with a five five players plus and you play set and it goes all seven rounds it's not going to be 25 minutes because a round is not going to be simply five minutes just setting up dealing the cards out and everything.

It might take a little longer than that. >> Maybe, right? I think for me my one negative little gripe about it is when everyone is at two or three points or something. So everyone's holding on to tons of cards and the one target card you flip over is a nine. Everyone just kind of goes, "Well, we're not getting it." So now it's whoever does it least, right?

I think the game's tension is best when there is that push to get as close as you can without going over I agree. >> Because if you're at if the target's 21 and you're at 17 that's not a bad score, but someone might have 19 and clench it right you know, right in front of you. I think the target score should probably just kind of increase over the course of the game, but that's another rule to throw at you, you know what I mean?

This game This game favors from being a little bit more simple. Yeah, and that's how I'm rating it. I'm giving this a seven. It's It's a nice filler style game if it doesn't go on too long. You can't take it too seriously. You make decisions. It's not like you're decisionless, you're doing decisions, but at the end of the day it can feel random especially if you play with more players but at the same time more players I think I like it more that way because it's almost a party game for me in that way.

I agree. Same down to the score. I'm giving this one a seven because yeah, there are rounds where you're going to feel like well, the only things I had to play to hold on to people played fives right on to you know, but then the next round that's not going to be the case and so it is fun. It's a fun journey as you go through and I do like as you said that little increasing tension as you're winning more rounds it's harder and harder to continue to win them.

So yeah, cat between us pretty cool. There you go folks. That's the cat in between us I suppose. I'm Tom. And I'm Chris. Meow. >> [music] >> Hey everybody thanks for watching this video. [music] If you like this review or whatever you just watched wasn't it amazing? Check out our channel Dice Tower.

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