FIRST TURN

More like fur-st turn, with Cat Lady by Josh Wood

BACKGROUND

“I was a visual effects artist for a number of years. I worked on Godzilla, Guardians of the Galaxy, Captain America: The Winter Soldier… While it’s awesome that I had the privilege to work on big movies that millions of people got to watch, there is something really great about having this creation that you control and you do all the work on. So while I was on a break between movies, I decided to take a shot at making board games – and I’m lucky, because there’s a very good group of designers in my area, including John Clair, Brian Henk, Scott Rogers and John Perry. I was working on two or three at that time, and Cat Lady was the one I pursued the hardest.”

COMPONENTS

“It would be hard to say that games like 7 Wonders or Sushi-Go! don’t play some kind of role in Cat Lady. But I really want to mention Richard Garfield, because he designed a form of drafting called Winston Drafting, where you have these piles of cards that you add to. For the longest time I thought Cat Lady would use that drafting system, which I kind of worked into play with this whole idea of the rows and the columns.”

OBJECTIVE

“The first game I was designing was a much heavier game. My sister was visiting, and I remember holding up all these pieces I’d cut out, showing her the game and trying to explain the rules, and she said, ‘Oh okay, if anyone can figure it out, you can figure it out.’ That kind of scared me. So one of the reasons I switched to Cat Lady was I thought it would be cool if the first game I designed was something my family – who are all non-gamers – could play.”

SETUP

“I’ve always been big into art and creating things. With Cat Lady, there’s not much work done by many other people. Even the artwork is my prototype artwork. After AEG signed the game, they said they wanted to print it about two or three weeks later! I said, ‘But I have all these stray cats in the game that aren’t really balanced!’ So my friend John Perry sat down with me one evening and we just played a bunch of games to try to work out that final balance.”

HOW TO PLAY

“You’re playing as a cat lady trying to collect the best cats in town. Cards are laid out in a three-by-three grid. On a player’s turn they can take any row or column of cards. You collect cats, as well as food to feed those cats, as well as toys, costumes and catnip. At the end of the game, your cats will score you points if they’ve been fed. However, they’ll lose points if you don’t feed them. So you have to be careful about that.”

END OF THE GAME

“It’s still being sold, it’s still being printed, I think it’s in about 10 languages now. It’s very successful in the Czech Republic and Poland, where the name of the game translates to ‘The Greatest Cat Game Ever’. And I’m not designing it, but there is a dog version coming out this year, called Dog Lover. So I have such a great love of Cat Lady, and I still get excited when people review the game today.”

STRATEGY TIPS

“I usually tell people: trust your gut, but also trust the other people around you. You have to know when something feels right to you, and also to be willing to understand when you are getting the same feedback from a lot of people that there might be something wrong. Another thing I usually say is: you’ll know when your game is good. When people ask to play your game, that’s how you know.”

There is something really great about having this creation that you control and you do all the work on