Cat Burglars
Cat Burglars Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 90 Cat cards (in 6 different colors)
- 20 Mirror cards
Goal of the Game
Win the game by obtaining eight Golden Balls of Yarn.
Setup
- Shuffle all cards into a single face-down draw deck.
- Deal each player six cards from the draw deck. Players may view their own cards but must keep them hidden from other players.
- Create a market by placing six cards face-up next to the deck.
- Choose a starting player.
Game Overview
Players take turns in clockwise order, performing one action per turn. They can choose from five available actions. When a player collects eight Golden Balls of Yarn, they win, and the game ends.
Player's Turn
During your turn, you must choose one of the following five actions:
- Recruit two cats
- Form a cat crew
- Activate a cat crew
- Secure the loot
- Infiltrate
Action 1: Recruit Two Cats
Take two cards and add them to your hand. For each card, you can choose the top card from the draw deck or a face-up card from the market. If you've taken cards from the market, you need to refill the market at the end of your turn.
When the deck is empty, reshuffle the discard pile to form a new draw deck.
Example: Anouk already has two cat crews. In her turn, she wants to add a new cat card to one of her crews. Because she has to build up the cat crews in stages, she can now only use this card to start a new cat crew. Only when she has two cat crews that are exactly the same size, she may expand one of those crews.
Action 2: Form a Cat Crew
Play a cat card face-up in a column in front of you on the table to start or expand a cat crew. Each column of cats is a cat crew. You can start a new crew or expand an existing one by adding a cat from your hand. You may have multiple cat crews, and you can have multiple cats of the same color in a crew.
You can only expand an existing crew if you have at least one other crew with exactly the same number of visible cats as the crew you wish to expand. For example, if you want to add a third cat to a crew with two cats, you must also have at least one other crew of exactly two cats.
- Mirror cards cannot be added to your cat crew.
- You can add cat cards to cat crews with a face-down card beneath them.
Action 3: Activate a Cat Crew
When you activate your cat crew, you can either locate a Golden Ball of Yarn or place a trap. Do this by placing a cat card from your hand face-down (with the cat side facing down) beneath one of your cat crews.
Follow these rules:
- Each cat crew may have only one face-down card.
- Do not reveal the card's face during this action.
- You can use any color cat card, but no mirror cards.
- The face-down card does not count towards the cat crew's size.
The face-down card that you place determines whether you've placed a Golden Ball of Yarn or a trap.
Locating a Golden Ball of Yarn: Your cat crew has captured a Golden Ball of Yarn if the color of the face-down card matches the color of a cat in the cat crew where the face-down card is located. The crew must still bring the Golden Ball of Yarn out of the museum, so it's not yet safe! The Golden Ball of Yarn can be scored in a later turn by you (see Action 4) or by another player (see Action 5).
Setting a trap: If the color of your face-down card does not match any cat in the cat crew where it's located, then your face-down card is a trap (see Action 5).
Note: If you add a cat to your cat crew in a later turn that is the same color as the face-down card, the face-down card will immediately become a Golden Ball of Yarn. This means that your cat crew initially had a trap, but continued searching and eventually found a real Golden Ball of Yarn.
Example: Mike wants to activate his cat crew on his turn to locate a Golden Ball of Yarn. He places a blue cat card face-down under the cat crew. Because the color matches one of the cats in his crew, this face-down card is now a Golden Ball of Yarn.
Example: Mike wants to activate his cat crew on his turn to set a trap. He places an orange cat card face-down under the cat crew. Because the color does not match any of the cats in his crew, this face-down card is now a trap.
Example: Mike decides one turn later to turn his previous trap (see previous example) into a Golden Ball of Yarn. He plays an orange cat card from his hand to add to his cat crew. From this moment on, the color of the face-down card is the same as one of the cats in his cat crew. The face-down card is now no longer a trap, but a Golden Ball of Yarn.
Action 4: Secure the Loot
Reveal one or more (this is up to you) Golden Balls of Yarn under your cat crews and add them to your scoring area, with the Golden Ball of Yarn facing up. You may never reveal a trap under your crew. You may look under your face-down cards at any time.
Example: Alberto chooses the action securing loot. He turns over three face-down cards, leaving the card under the third cat crew face-down (this could be a trap or Alberto is trying to create confusion). Alberto scores three Golden Balls of Yarn this turn. He places these three cards in his own scoring area.
Action 5: Infiltrate
If you think that an opponent's cat crew has a Golden Ball of Yarn, you can try to loot it by discarding cards from your hand. The number of cards and the colors have to match the visible cats in the target cat crew. You can use mirror cards as jokers. Reveal the face-down card you want to examine. If it's a Golden Ball of Yarn, add it to your scoring area. If it's a trap, the owner places it face-up in their play area according to Action 2 rules.
Example: Anouk plays three cards from her hand to look at Alberto's cat crew. She uses one mirror card as a joker instead of a green card (1). The face-down card is unfortunately a trap (2). Alberto adds the card to one of his cat crews (3) (or may start a new cat crew).
Mirror cards: In infiltration, mirror cards can act as wild card jokers, substituting for any color needed.
End of the Game
The game ends when a player collects eight Golden Balls of Yarn.
Hall of Fame Variant
For an added challenge, you can add another game end trigger. The game then also ends when a player collects six Golden Balls of Yarn in different colors. Place each scored Golden Ball of Yarn with the colored cat facing up, to show everyone which colors have been scored.
Two-Player Game
To play this game with two players, we add one small rule to Action 5. When you have to discard cards to pay the cost of infiltrating another player's cat crew, you may discard one card from the market instead of a card from your hand. The remaining cards must come from your hand, as usual. After this, refill the market to six cards.