The Isle of Cats: Kittens + Beasts
The Isle of Cats: Kittens + Beasts Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 20 kitten tiles (4 of each colour)
- 1 kitten board
- 1 kitten bag (green)
- 25 beast figures (5 of each figure)
- 18 beast tiles
- 1 beast bag (red)
- 15 event tiles
- 1 event bag (blue)
- 18 royal rats
- 32 one point tokens
- 32 five point tokens
- 10 semi-permanent tokens
- 8 lesson cards
- 7 family cards
- 1 updated scorepad
How to play video: the publisher's website, www.thecityofkings.com/theisleofcats/, has a video explaining how to play with this expansion.
Modules
When reading these rules, please keep in mind that all of the standard game rules still apply. Unless specifically stated, none of these modules change any existing rules, they only add new rules on top.
The Isle of Cats Kittens + Beasts expansion consists of 3 new expansion modules that can be played in any combination with the standard game, as well as 1 new lesson module.
Kittens Module
Complexity: Easy
The kittens module adds more importance to being the fastest player each day and introduces new options for players without adding much complexity to the game.
Beasts Module
Complexity: Medium
The beasts module provides players with more options at the start of the game while they are still searching for lesson cards. Beasts have a small ruleset and are easy to play with, but playing them well can be very challenging.
Events Module
Complexity: Hard
The events module should only be played by people who are experienced with the normal game rules. It adds new challenges, changes rules, and will have a big impact on your strategies.
Before Your First Game
The first time you play, you will need to do the following 3 things:
- Place the 20 kitten tiles in the green bag.
- Place the 18 beast tiles in the red bag.
- Place the 15 event tiles in the blue bag.
Combining Modules
Each module changes the game in a different way, and we recommend you try them one at a time to familiarise yourself with how they work.
Once you are ready, you can try combining them all together, but be warned; this will make the game a lot more challenging.
Lesson Module I
In addition to the 3 new expansion modules, a new lesson module has been included. You can find the rules for lesson modules in The Isle of Cats rulebook on page 23.
Identifying Kittens + Beasts Cards
All of the cards included with the Kittens + Beasts expansion show the rat symbol in the bottom left corner.
Kittens Module
The island cats may easily be tempted by a few fish, but their kittens are much nimbler and easily frightened. Only the fastest will be able to find them before they vanish into the undergrowth.
Each day, the fastest player will now be able to rescue kittens in addition to cats.
Global Setup
In addition to the normal setup, the kittens module requires 3 extra steps:
- Kitten board. Place the kitten board below the island (kitten side up).
- Kitten bag. Place the green kitten bag somewhere all players can reach.
- Kitten tiles. Draw 4 tiles at random from the kitten bag and place them on the kitten board.
Gameplay
The kittens module comes into play during phase 4: Rescuing Cats. All other phases of the game play as normal.
Phase 4: Rescuing Cats
When rescuing cats, the starting player will now have the option to rescue kittens as well as cats. On each of their turns, they may now choose to rescue kittens instead of a cat. They may rescue 1 cat, 1 kitten, or 2 kittens each turn.
Only the fastest player each day will be able to rescue kittens.
If all the cats have been rescued and only kittens remain, the fastest player can continue to take turns rescuing kittens, but the other players must pass.
Just like cats, to rescue a kitten, the player must have a basket and enough fish to lure the kitten in.
Unlike cats, you may rescue up to 2 kittens with a single basket, meaning for each basket, you may choose to rescue 1 or 2 kittens.
- If you choose to rescue 1 kitten, it will cost you 2 fish and 1 basket.
- If you choose to rescue 2 kittens, it will cost you a total of 5 fish and 1 basket. The first kitten costs 2 fish, and the second kitten costs 3 fish.
You cannot rescue cats and kittens in the same basket.
Refilling Kittens
Kittens are immediately refilled any time a player has used a basket to rescue kittens and has placed them on their boat.
If a player chooses to rescue 2 kittens, then they must select both kittens and place them both on their boat before refilling the kitten board.
Kittens are not removed at the end of the day, and once the kitten bag is empty, no more kittens will come into play.
It is common for the kittens to run out during the game.
Placing Kittens
Kittens are cats, they are just a little bit smaller! They follow all the normal tile placement rules you would use for a cat.
When rescuing 2 kittens, if you place your first kitten tile on a treasure map icon, the colours match, and you choose to take a common treasure, you must place the common treasure on your boat before you place the second kitten.
Lesson and Anytime Cards
When resolving lesson and anytime cards, you should consider kittens to be cats.
Example 1: If you gain 1 fish per blue cat and you have 2 blue cats and 1 blue kitten, you will gain 3 fish.
Example 2: If you gain 1 point per orange cat touching the edge of your boat and you have 3 orange cats and 2 orange kittens touching the edge of your boat, you gain 5 points.
Scoring
There are no changes to how scoring works, and for all purposes, you should treat each kitten as a cat.
Example: If you have 1 blue kitten adjacent to 2 blue cats, then you have a family of 3 blue cats.
Beasts Module
Tired of humanoids, the ancient beasts of the world sought refuge at the Isle of Cats, where they befriended the local felines and have lived in peace for hundreds of years. Even now, with Vesh's armies on their way, the beasts have no desire to leave and will need their friends alongside them if they are to be convinced to stay on your boat.
On the first day (and the first day only) players will have the ability to rescue beasts from the island as well as cats.
Global Setup
In addition to the normal setup, the beasts module requires 2 extra steps:
- Beast bag. Place the red beast bag somewhere all players can reach.
- Beast figures. Place the beast figures by the supply.
Gameplay
The beasts module comes into play on day 1 only, during the fill the fields step, and phase 4: Rescue Cats. All other phases of the game play as normal.
Day 1: Fill the Fields
During the fill the fields step of the first day, you will only put cats in the left (3 fish) field. In the right (5 fish) field, you will place beasts instead of cats.
| Players | Left Field | Right Field |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 4 cats | 4 beasts |
| 3 | 6 cats | 6 beasts |
| 4 | 8 cats | 8 beasts |
| 5 | 10 cats | 10 beasts |
| 6 | 12 cats | 12 beasts |
Day 1: Phase 4: Rescuing Cats
In addition to rescuing cats, players may now choose to use their baskets to rescue beasts during the rescue phase of day 1.
Rescuing a beast follows all the normal rules of rescuing a cat:
- You may only rescue 1 beast or cat per turn, but you may have as many turns as you wish.
- You must use 1 basket and spend 5 fish for each beast you want to rescue.
Beasts will always cost 5 fish to rescue, as they will only ever be in the right field.
Day 1: Empty the Fields
At the end of day 1, any beasts that weren't rescued from the fields flee and should be placed back in the beast bag; they will not be needed again.
Placing Beasts
Beasts follow all the standard tile placement rules.
You may place a beast over a treasure map, but you will not gain a common treasure.
Lesson and Anytime Cards
There are no lesson or anytime cards that refer to beasts, and beasts are not cats and do not have a colour.
Beast Friendships
Each beast tile has 3 or 4 cat icons on it, and these represent which cat families the beast wishes to be friends with.
To become friends, the square on the beast containing the cat icon must be touching at least 1 cat of the matching colour, and that cat must be part of a family.
Once a family of cats is touching the matching icon on a beast, they become friends, and you may take any 1 of the beast figures and put it across the beast and touching cat tiles to show the friendship is complete.
Each beast can only be friends with one family of each cat colour. However, one cat family can be friends with multiple beasts.
Beast Figures
There are 5 different beast figures and you can use whichever one you want to show your beast friendships. The figure does not need to match the beast or cat colour.
Scoring
You get 5 points for each completed friendship on your beasts. Simply count the beast figures, and multiply the total by 5.
Example:
- The orange cat family is touching at least 1 side of the orange cat icon on the beast. A friendship was formed, so a beast figure was added, and it scores 5 points.
- The red cat is touching the red cat icon, but it is not part of a cat family, so no friendship was formed, and it scores 0 points.
- The blue cat family is touching the beast, but it is not touching at least 1 side of the blue cat icon, so no friendship was formed, and it scores 0 points.
- The orange cat family is touching the orange cat icon on the beast, but an orange cat friendship was already formed (1) and each beast can only be friends with one family of each cat colour. This means no friendship was formed for these cats, and they score 0 points.
Events Module
The drums of Vesh grow louder, the weather starts to change, and chaos is unleashed across the island as cats and beasts scatter in all directions. Every day there is change, and each morning, you will need to adapt if you are to succeed in your mission.
Events vary between changing a rule and giving players a new way to score points.
Event Tiles
There are 2 types of event tiles: points and actions.
Action Tiles
These provide a bonus, give a penalty, or change a rule on a specific day.
Action tiles contain 2 things.
- Top. Icons showing the bonus, penalty, or rule change. Sometimes these will include purple numbers.
- Bottom. 5 dots; you can use these to identify action tiles from point tiles.
Point Tiles
These give players a way of scoring extra points on a specific day.
Point tiles contain 3 things.
- Top. A blue or green number. Blue numbers are points you can gain once per game. Green numbers followed by 2 dots are points you can gain multiple times.
- Middle. Icons showing how to gain the points.
- Bottom. 3 small numbers, used for solo play only.
Face-Up and Face-Down Tiles
All event tiles are double sided:
- Face-up side. The face-up side contains a small red gem in the top left corner.
- Face-down side. The face-down side has no red gem in the top left corner.
Global Setup
In addition to the normal setup, the events module requires 4 extra steps:
- Face-up Event tiles. Draw 2 tiles at random from the events bag and place them face-up (red gem side) on the island board covering the 5 and 1 spaces of the day tracker.
- Face-down Event tiles. Draw 3 tiles at random from the events bag and place them face-down on the island board covering the 4, 3, and 2 spaces of the day tracker. The events bag will not be needed again and can be returned to the box.
- Supply. Place the royal rat figures, 1 point tokens, and 5 point tokens by the supply.
- Semi-permanent tokens. Place the semi-permanent tokens next to the permanent basket tokens.
Vesh's Boat
Instead of placing Vesh's boat on space 5 of the day tracker, you will now place it on the event tile that covers the 5 space.
You will still move Vesh's boat along 1 space at the end of each day, but now it will travel over the event tiles.
Gameplay
The events module comes into play during the fill the fields stage of the game; all phases of the game play as normal.
All the event tiles are described in detail on the last 2 pages of this rulebook.
Fill the Fields
Before the starting player fills the fields with new cats, the event tile currently under Vesh's boat should be resolved.
If an event tile rewards a player with points, then they should immediately take that many point tokens from the supply and place them next to their boat.
Point tokens are public for all players to see.
Example 1: It's day 1 and Vesh's boat is on the tile to the left. Before filling the fields, all players must take 1 royal rat and place it on their boat. Once all players have done this, the fields can be filled.
Example 2: It's day 3 and Vesh's boat is on the tile to the left. Before filling the fields, all players gain 2 points for every common treasure on their boat. Once all players have taken their points, the fields can be filled.
Scoring
All points for event tiles are gained during days 2, 3, and 4; no extra points are awarded at the end of the game.
There are no face-up event tiles that score points, so you will never have point tiles on days 1 or 5.
During final scoring, players should add up the total number of point tokens in front of them and add them to the score sheet.
Royal Rats
Royal rats count as -3 points each at the end of the game.
Semi-Permanent Tokens
Semi-permanent tokens can be gained from action event tiles and give you either 1 additional basket or add 4 boots to your total speed.
During phase 4: Rescuing Cats, when you place your rescue cards face-down in front of you, you may choose to place any number of semi-permanent tokens you have on top of your cards.
You may keep a semi-permanent token for as many days as you wish, but once it has been played, it must be discarded at the end of the current day, even if you end up not using it.
Example 1: If you gain 10 points if you have no visible rats on your boat and you have a royal rat on your boat, you will gain 0 points.
Example 2: If you gain 2 points per rat on your boat, you will gain 2 points for each royal rat on your boat, in addition to any normal rats.
Royal Rats
When you gain a royal rat, you must place it on your boat following the normal tile placement rules, and a royal rat does count as a tile on your boat.
Just like normal tiles, if a royal rat is the first tile you place on your boat, it can go anywhere. If you already have at least 1 tile on your boat, the royal rat must be placed adjacent to an existing tile.
If the first thing you place on your boat is a royal rat, then your next tile must be placed adjacent to the royal rat.
Royal rats can be placed on:
- Treasure maps, but you will not gain a common treasure.
- Normal rats.
- Empty spaces.
Royal rats cannot be placed on:
- An existing tile.
- A space already containing a royal rat.
Filling Space
Any squares on your boat that contain a royal rat count as being filled.
- A room is not empty if it contains a royal rat.
- A room can be filled if it contains a royal rat.
- A rat that is covered by a royal rat counts as being covered and is no longer visible.
Lesson and Anytime Cards
When resolving lesson cards, anytime cards, and event tiles, you should consider royal rats to be both rats and tiles that fill spaces.
Removing Royal Rats
At any point in the game, if Vesh's boat is not on the hand of Vesh symbol, you may feed fish to a cat to remove a royal rat from your boat and return it to the supply. It does not have to be your turn.
To feed a cat, the cat must be adjacent to the royal rat, and you must discard 1 fish.
If you do not have 1 fish to discard or you do not have a cat adjacent to the royal rat, it cannot be removed.
Scoring
At the end of the game, any royal rats that are on your boat are worth -3 points. These points should be recorded within the rat section of the scorepad.
Solo
This section highlights all of the changes to the rules that are required to play with only a single player. You should only read these rules once you have learned the normal rules for the expansion. All of the normal rules apply unless stated otherwise.
Difficulty
The kitten and beast modules add more decisions to the solo game but do not drastically alter the game's difficulty.
The events module favours your sister and increases the difficulty of the game. If you currently play the game using advanced solo lesson cards, it is recommended you use 1-2 fewer advanced solo lesson cards the first time you use events.
Solo Kittens
If you are the fastest player, you may choose to rescue kittens using the normal rules.
If your sister is the fastest player, then all 4 kittens should be removed from the kitten board and immediately replaced with 4 new kittens.
Scoring
As kittens count as cats, each kitten on your boat counts towards your sister's solo colour cards.
There are no special scoring rules for your sister.
Solo Beasts
When you fill the fields during the first day, you should place 4 beasts, instead of 4 cats, in the right field. Number them 5 - 8, just like you would normally do with the cats.
For the purposes of resolving your sister's solo basket card, the keyword cat should be read as cat or beast. If the card says cat 5 and there is a beast in position 5, then your sister removes the beast rather than a cat.
Scoring
During final scoring, your sister will gain 3 points for every cat icon on each beast on your boat.
It does not matter which cats are next to the beast; she will always score either 9 or 12 points per beast on your boat.
Solo Events
Action Tiles
You should resolve action tiles as normal; they do not impact your sister.
Point Tiles
Point tiles also follow the same rules for the player, but your sister will score a predetermined number of points depending on the position of the tile on the day tracker.
Point tiles will never be placed in the first or last spaces of the day tracker.
- For position 2, your sister earns points equal to the first number on the tile.
- For position 3, your sister earns points equal to the second number on the tile.
- For position 4, your sister earns points equal to the third number on the tile.
Scoring
Your sister will score points for the visible point tiles on the island board following the point tile rules above.
She will not gain any other points from events.
Example: Your sister scores:
- 0 points for the first tile.
- 8 points, the 1st number shown on the second tile.
- 5 points, the 2nd number shown on the third tile.
- 8 points, the 3rd number shown on the fourth tile.
- 0 points for the last tile.
Giving her a total of 21 points.
FAQ
Clarifications for "Move up to 3 cats to different fields."
You cannot use this card to move beasts; beasts are not cats.
You cannot use this card to move cats onto the kitten board or kittens into the fields. Kittens do not go in fields, and cats do not go on the kitten board.
Clarifications for "When you next rescue 1 cat, you may rescue 2 cats instead."
You cannot use this card when rescuing beasts; beasts are not cats.
You can use this card when rescuing kittens. The valid combinations are:
- 1 cat, then 1 or 2 kittens
- 1 or 2 kittens, then 1 cat
- 1 or 2 kittens, then 1 or 2 kittens.
Clarifications for "Take 4 tiles from the bag at random and immediately place them in the fields."
You cannot place the cats drawn from the bag onto the kitten board.
Can I play Kittens + Beasts with more than 4 players?
Yes. The Kittens + Beasts expansion is fully compatible with the Late Arrivals (5 and 6 player) expansion and no additional rules are needed.
Event Tiles
Action Tiles
- +1 royal rat. All players must take a royal rat and immediately place it on their boat.
- +2 fish (fishing phase). On this day, during the fishing phase, all players will receive 2 extra fish, giving them 22 fish instead of 20.
- -2 fish (fishing phase). On this day, during the fishing phase, all players will receive 2 fewer fish, giving them 18 fish instead of 20.
- Semi-permanent token (+1 basket or +4 boots). In turn order, all players must take a semi-permanent token. You must decide now whether you want 1 basket or 4 boots and place the tile in front of you showing your chosen side.
- Phase 4 and phase 5 switch. On this day, the order of phase 4 and phase 5 is switched. You will play rare find cards before you adjust the turn order and rescue cats.
- Extra common treasure. On this day, any time a player receives a common treasure by covering a treasure map, they may take an extra common treasure. It may be the same or a different common treasure.
- Rare treasure instead. On this day, any time a player receives a common treasure by covering a treasure map, they may take a rare treasure instead.
- Fewer cats in the left field. On this day, when you fill the left field, you will draw 1 fewer cat per player from the bag. This means the left field will have 1 cat per player, and the right field will have 2 cats per player.
Point Tiles
- 1 point per 2 rats. Gain 1 point for every 2 visible rats on your boat. You do not get any points for having 1 rat, and 13 rats would score 6 points.
- 1 point per rat touching a cat. Gain 1 point for every visible rat on your boat that is touching at least one cat. Each visible rat can score a maximum of 1 point.
- Row. Choose a row on your boat and gain 1 point for every cat that has at least 1 square in the chosen row.
- Column. Choose a column on your boat and gain 2 points for every cat that has at least 1 square in the chosen column.
- Touching a chosen cat. Choose a cat on your boat and gain 2 points for every cat that is touching your chosen cat.
- Lonely cats. Gain 2 points for every lonely cat on your boat. A lonely cat is a cat not touching any other cats of the same colour.
- Empty rooms. Gain 2 points for every empty room on your boat. An empty room contains no tiles of any type.
- Full rooms. Gain 2 points for every room on your boat that is full. A full room is one that has no visible squares.
- Common treasures. Gain 2 points for every common treasure on your boat.
- Rare treasures. Gain 2 points for every rare treasure on your boat.
- Treasure maps. Gain 3 points for every visible treasure map on your boat.