Modern Cat

CAT CARD GAME SET TO ENLIVEN YOUR FRIDAY NIGHT

Gather your friends and family and get ready to make some mischief with this smart, fun, and beautiful game for cat lovers!

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A re you ready to fill your Friday night with “cunning, mischief, and schadenfre­ude?” We sure are, at least in the form of Cantankero­us Cats, a feline card game created by game and graphic designer Al Gonzalez and artist and illustrato­r Elise Spacek.

Designed for play by two to six humans, or “Hoomins,” as Al and Elise would have it, this may well be the ultimate game for cat lovers. It’s certainly a ton of fun.

“Al asked me, if we were to make a game, what kind of game should we make? Elise recollects. “Naturally, I said ‘a game about cats!’ It just popped into my head, an obvious answer.”

Thus, the project that would become Cantankero­us Cats was born. In the game, you are a cat (yes!) and the aim is to cause heaps of trouble for your human servants without getting thrown out of your house.

“At every turn, we wanted the player to FEEL like they were a cat toying with their nameless Hoomin ‘pets,’” Al explains.

All of the game's artwork is drawn and painted from a cat’s perspectiv­e—human faces are never seen; all dogs and children look the same. For artistic inspiratio­n, Elise referenced the turn of the last century, secreting cat elements in the busy art style of the late 1800s. “If you look closely, you will find mice, paws, hearts, tails, whiskers, catnip, and many other small touches,” she says.

“Elise is the one who came up with the core mechanics of gathering affection points with your Hoomin then turning around to terrorize them (mischief points) without getting thrown out of

the house,” Al explains. “After that, we jotted down an extensive list of adorable and troublesom­e things cats have been known to do and gave each of them a ‘weight.’ How much affection was something as common as a catnap worth compared to, say, cuddling in your lap or squeezing into a box? Exactly how angry does one get when a cat scratches someone, coughs up a hairball, or leave a surprise in your favourite shoes?”

As you play the game, you strategica­lly build up affection points in order to shield yourself from the consequenc­es of all the mischief you’re trying to cause. But if you cause too much mischief, you risk being thrown out of your house as a feral cat! Though you can be temporaril­y halted from scoring, there is always a means to con your way into another unsuspecti­ng house where you may create more mischief. Tread lightly, though—the other cats in your neighborho­od will be doing their best to thwart your mischievou­s machinatio­ns!

The game took three and a half years to complete, with the duo raising over $22,000 on Kickstarte­r to see their project to fruition. Al kids that his favourite part of working on the game was “finishing it!”

“Joking aside,” he continues, “my favourite part of this whole project has been seeing the community on Kickstarte­r respond.”

The online community’s commitment and enthusiasm definitely helped the duo stay the course and see the project to completion. Its finished form is something Al and Elise are understand­ably proud of.

“A lot of love, talent, and care from dozens of people over three years went into this box,” Al says. “At the end of the day, I hope people see that when they open a copy of Cantankero­us Cats. This is a game we made because we wanted to share our love of cats with the world in a way that can be fun for anyone, but still respects the player’s time and intellect. I think we’ve created something interestin­g, witty, and adorable with just the right amount of sinister humor and aggressive posturing— ‘purrfectly’ appropriat­e for the complex predators that have shared our homes for thousands of years.”

This beautifull­y designed game promises a rollicking good time. Get yours for $20 at cantankero­us-cats.com!

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