Launching soon on Kickstarter is Towering Purrfection. I received a free demo copy of the game to aid in promotion of the Kickstarter campaign. If you view this review prior to launch, you can click the link to be notified on launch if you’re interested in backing the project. This is my first review of a tabletop game, but I’ve backed a ton of projects (especially tabletop games) on Kickstarter, and I think it’s a great place to find unique tabletop games. This one I was following because I backed their previous game, Magical Unicorn Quest, though I’ve yet to play that one (though I have received my copy).
Once I received Towering Purrfection in the mail, I played it with my kids (aged 12 and 15) so I could write up my thoughts on the game.
The game is designed for up to 5 players, though I couldn’t play-test with that many people because the demo copy only had enough pieces for up to 3 players. This suited us just fine because I usually only play games with my kids, though I would be interested in playing the game with more people too.
The rules are fairly easy to learn and simple to follow, which is great for days when you don’t have a lot of time to learn and play something new (one of the reasons I haven’ played some of the games I have is because of how complicated they look to learn and play the first time). The box states that it’s designed for ages 8+ and takes around 20 minutes to play, and I would agree with that assessment.
The object of the game is to earn the most points when building a cat tower in an abandoned warehouse. As the rulebook states, “Build the best cat tower for our feline friends. Each player builds their own tower, so each tower is unique to its designer.”
There are multiple ways to earn points in the game, which allows individual players to make strategic decisions around how to build their cat towers. These ways include:
- Matching wallpapers on the background of the tiles (except plain bricks)
- Connecting cat tree pieces vertically or horizontally
- Bonus points as a result of in-game rewards – i.e. making a match with your cats according to the the kitten bonus card grants you a “kitten tile” to place in your cat tree. The kitten tile gives you additional opportunities for points at the end of the game (matching wallpaper, because you can choose the wild wallpaper colour at the end of the game, and one point for each cat that adjoins the kitten tile)
- Bonus points based on your score according to the end-game bonus cards.
The following image demonstrates the bonus cards that game up for the game I played with my kids:
As you can see, you get to select two cards at the beginning of the game for the end-game bonus, and one card for the in-game reward. In our case, our goals were to have the biggest box, and overhangs. These scores are done for each individual player, so players end up with the the points that match the largest value possible according to the end-game bonus card. For my kids and myself, we all managed to make 5×5 boxes in our cat towers, so we all got 5 points each for that, but only I had enough overhangs to get victory points from that end-game card.
The following images show how each of our cat towers finished at the end of the game, so you have an opportunity to check out the art and how the game looks:
I enjoyed the gameplay structure for this game, with each player taking their turns synchronously. By that I mean, we all do the same step at the same time for each round, and there are ten rounds in a game. The steps are:
- Draw two cat tiles
- Choose to keep one cat tile and pass the other one to the player on your right
- Reveal both of your cat tiles
- Play both your kept cat tile and the one you were passed anywhere on your cat tower, as long as it has support somewhere underneath it (i.e. it can be on the ground level or above an existing cat tile, but not adjacent to a piece above the ground level without another cat tile directly beneath it)
- Check your cat towers for any matching in-game bonuses (if you have any, draw a kitten tile to place in your tower)
I think having everyone do all these steps simultaneously helped the game move along faster, and meant we spent less time trying to think strategically about giving a tile that would be worse for the player we were passing it to. In that way, it felt more friendly than competitive, even though it’s not a co-op game.
So how did we do? Here was our final score card:
Note: the demo copy did not include any printed score cards, but the rule book indicates that the game should include them, so if you back the game on Kickstarter, you shouldn’t have to use scrap paper like we did.
As you can see, we all got pretty close scores. I liked this outcome, and I think that it helped the game feel more friendly, too. Sometimes we can have some pretty sore winners or sore losers when the final score is much more disparate, so I appreciated that this was a game we could enjoy as a family without that level of competitiveness.
Overall, we had a great time, and I would like to keep playing it with my kids. I would also like to recommend checking it out on Kickstarter if it sounds like a game you would enjoy too. Especially if you love cats. They’re so cute!
I reviewed this game for my blog because I got the demo copy for free, but if you enjoyed this review and would be interested in hearing my thoughts on other tabletop games I own, leave a comment to let me know. I can start reviewing more if folks want them!
Dominica May 