If It Fits Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Game Play
  • Cardboard Placement
  • Cat Placement
  • Sleeping Cat
  • Black Cat – Princess
  • Special Toy Cards
• End of the Game
• Scoring
• Advanced Rules

Components

• Double-sided cat cards: Lilly (5x), Charlie (5x), Milo (5x), Jack (5x), Izzy (5x)
• Black cat cards: Princess (5x)
• Starting cardboard cards (5x)
• Special toy cards (3x)
• Cardboard cards (72x)

Setup

At the start of the game, follow these simple steps:

1. Sort out all double-sided cat cards. Each player gets to pick one cat, receives the five cards for that cat and places these cards visibly in front of them. Any cats not picked are returned to the box.
2. Sort out the black cat cards. Take as many black cats as there are players and return any remaining black cat cards to the box.
3. Sort out the starting cardboard cards, recognizable by the different card back, and keep them apart.
4. Take all normal cardboard cards and the three special toy cards, and shuffle them to form a deck. Deal two cards to every player.
5. Now, divide the deck into as many equal stacks of cards as there are players. Add one black cat to each stack, shuffle the stacks individually and finally place them on top of each other. Do not shuffle them again. The resulting deck is the draw deck.
6. Pick a starting player, this player chooses one of the starting cardboard cards and places it on the table. The player to their left then does the same, connecting it on the short side to the box already on the table following the placement rules. This continues clockwise until all players have placed one starting cardboard card on the table, the number of starting cards is therefore equal to the player count. The game now starts with the starting player and continues clockwise.

Game Play

The goal of the game is to create cardboard boxes with cat toys in them, the player with the most cats in a box earns points for the box based on cat toys in the box. The cardboard box cards have open sides and walls. When two open sides are connected the cards together form one box. A box can consist of as many cards as there are in the game, it is only limited by the walls. A box is considered closed if there are no open sides left.

Cardboard Placement

A player must in their turn choose whether to draw another card from the deck to their hand and play a card from their hand, or play a sleeping cat (in which case the player does not draw a new card). If a player chooses to draw a new card and therefore play a card from their hand, they must place this card according to the placement rules:

• Cards may only be connected long-side to long-side and short-side to short-side, not long-side to short-side.
• Cards may not overlap.
• Cards may only be played if they completely fit on the table. Players are not allowed to shift/move the cards or place a card partially over the edge of the table. If it fits…
• Walls of boxes do not limit the placement of cards, double walls are allowed.

Cat Placement

After playing a cardboard box card, the player is allowed to play a cat card. The cat card placement rules are:

• Cat cards are placed across two cardboard cards connected via the long sides.
• Cats can only be placed in a box that does not have a cat from another player, unless you already have a cat in that box as well.
• When connecting multiple boxes with at least one cat from another player but no cat of your own, it is not allowed to place a cat on the card that connects the boxes.
• A cat card cannot be placed across a wall.
• One of the two cards underneath the cat card must be the card played by the player that turn.

A box with a cat in it is occupied and will score points for that player at the end of the game. By connecting multiple boxes, it is possible that multiple players end up with a cat (or multiple cats) in the same box. The player with the most cats in the box occupies the box and earns the points. In case of a tie, the tied players receive the full points.

Sleeping Cat

Instead of drawing a new card and playing a card from their hand, a player can choose to play a sleeping cat. A sleeping cat acts as a normal cardboard card and must be connected following the cardboard placement rules, not the cat placement rules. A sleeping cat does occupy the box it is connected to (other players cannot place a cat), but it does not earn points unless a normal cat card is added later. If/when a normal cat is added, the sleeping cat counts as a normal cat as well.

Black Cat – Princess

When drawing a new card, this can be a black cat. Players take this to their hand just like a normal card and they do not have to show it to other players. However, this cat is a real Princess that has to replace a (normal or sleeping) cat in a box when played. Thereby removing a scoring opportunity and Princess takes its place. A player can use Princess to replace their own cat or the cat of another player. The replaced cat returns to the original owner.

Special Toy Cards

There are three special toy cards in the game. They are part of the draw deck, but when drawn a player must immediately play it following the cat placement rules. The player therefore adds it to an existing box. If there are no free spots to play the card following the cat placement rules, the player may play the card using the normal cardboard placement rules.

End of the Game

The end of the game is triggered when the draw deck is depleted or when a player uses their fifth and last cat card. Play now continues as normal, except that players do not draw new cards anymore and cannot play sleeping cats. Play therefore continues until all players have emptied their hand. The end of game is still triggered if a black cat is used by another player to replace the fifth cat of that player. Scores are now determined.

Scoring

Scoring is done box by box. The player with the most cats in a box, scores that box. Some of the cardboard box cards have icons on them that depict cat toys or a water spray bottle. The points scored with a box depends on the number of cat toy icons in it. The cat toy icon that is present the most is counted, earning one point per icon. The other cat toy icons are ignored. However, the water spray bottles are always counted and result in one negative point per icon. If a box is closed (it does not have open sides), both the positive and negative points will be doubled.

The cat toy icons are a mouse, a ball and a fish, each worth +1. The water spray bottle is worth -1.

If a player has multiple (normal) cats in a box, they earn one extra point per cat except for the first cat. This is not double for a closed box.

The player with the most points wins. In case of a tie, the player with the least negative points wins.

Advanced Rules

Players looking for a slightly more challenging experience can use the advanced rules. The normal rules apply, with the following exceptions:

• All black cats are shuffled into the deck.
• Cardboard placement rules are expanded: there are no double walls allowed, limiting the placement options.
• Extra cats in a box will not earn extra points.
• Sleeping cats will only count as half a cat when determining which player occupies a box.