ISLE OF CATS: EXPLORE & DRAW, THE (2022)

PLAYERS	TIME	DESIGNER	PUBLISHER
1-6	30-45 mins	Frank West	The City of Games

We’re big fans of the original tile laying version, and this has enough similarities to make it an easy learn if you’ve played THE ISLE OF CATS.

One of the big differences in EXPLORE & DRAW is the lack of confrontation. There’s no splitting out of cards, no taking stuff just to stop your opponent getting what they need.

Instead, as the cards are revealed showing the available Cats, Treasures, and Lessons, every player can pick what they like, even if someone else uses the same.

So, from a 3×4 grid of cards players choose a column of three cards and then either draw them on their dry wipe ship board, or mark the lesson off of a tick list to remember for end of game scoring.

Typical THE ISLE OF CATS mechanisms are here, like filling rooms, covering rats, and matching cat colours to map colours.

The game comes with multiple packs of coloured pens, one colour to match each of the five cat families, and black for the treasure tiles.

Something extra that I really like are the extra abilities. There are five powers you can pick from; one per turn, limited to three per game. But they give your turn a little extra wallop. Maybe use a row of four instead. Or pick a card from three different columns.

It just gives you some wiggle room when the cards don’t work for you, but you’ve still got that tough decision of which to use and when.

The only thing I miss playing this version is the tactility of those beautiful Polyomino tiles, which really help planning out your placement.

EXPLORE & DRAW is a much friendlier version of THE ISLE OF CATS, with quicker set up and less components. It’s the better version for teaching the basics of the game, it takes up less table space, and is a quicker game.