A Game Of Cat And Mouth Review

Reviewed by Deborah Banasko

A Game of Cat and Mouth is from the makers of Exploding Kittens (which we love as a family), so I was very excited to try this one out. I love the play on words in the title, and the box is instantly eye-catching with its brightly coloured rainbow stripes, cat face and stars. Appealing to both boys and girls.

The premise is simple so it’s pretty easy to set up in less than a minute as the box is the game board, making it portable and space-saving. It’s great to take on holiday and to friends houses too.

It’s a bit like pinball or sling-puck but with a twist. The twist being that you fire balls through a central cat’s open mouth using a magnetic cat paw, like a slingshot! The game box has a handle (hence the portability) and you simply open it up, slot the central cat’s face into place along with the 6 cardboard panels around the sides to create a more enclosed game board. Then, select your cat paw of choice, allocate each player 4 yellow balls, and on the count of 3 fire the balls away. The first person to land all of the 8 balls into their oponents side, scores a point.

You can also add the black nose ball and three white teeth balls into the central cat for an extra dimension to the game. You win a round and score a point when a player either hits the black nose ball or all three teeth balls into the oponents side of the board, making that three different ways to score a point. The cats eyes are brightly coloured twistable dials that allow you to keep score of how many rounds each player is winning. The first to win 5 rounds in the winner.

Helping me to review A game of Cat and Mouth were my 9 year old daughter and almost 7 year old son, and as much as I would like to say that I annihilated them with my fast-thinking and speed it was a pretty close match each time. It is one of those super fast games where you can start to panic a bit and lose your focus if you aren’t careful, so there was a lot of screaming and tactical name-calling in our house to distract oneanother. Playing against my competitive husband was hilarious as it went on for so long that the kids gave up cheering and wandered off.

The balls are contained within the game board as much as possible using the side and back pieces which isn’t fool proof but does help. This is not an one of those easy games that you play a few times and get bored; you need to be precise and take your time, and we all felt that the three ways to score kept it exciting and gave everyone a chance to score. It’s a game to bring out again and again.

Whilst the game is portable and fold-away, there is a precise way to arrange the pieces in order for the box to close so check the instructions instead of randomly rearranging and trying to ram it all in as I did.

I feel compelled to comment on the cute factor of the pink and blue cat paws, and the strength of the magnet. This was the feature that I did wonder about as I could imagine the paw slipping as you build up speed but it honestly didn’t, it’s a very well designed game.

As an additional feature there is a tournament app at www.CatandMouth.game to enable more than two players to compete should you wish to take it to the next level.

The children think this game is hilarious; cats, cute paws and essentially having a catapult-type war against oneanother… what’s not to love?

The target age of 7 and above is about right, although I may be tempted to push it down to age 6. The balls are small and tempting to pop into your mouth when you’re little so it’s one to keep away from young children, and due to the element of skill required I think that younger children would become annoyed and frustrated at being unable to master it. The price point of £15 is excellent, and ideal for Christmas or birthday gifts.

We have large family parties several times a year and someone always brings a game along for the kids and adults; this is without doubt one that will go down a storm as we all like to get a bit loud and competitive trying to beat the teenagers especially.

It’s one of those games that you bring out regularly as it’s quick and easy to set up and play, but not one that goes on all afternoon unless you want it to. With this in mind I would say that it’s a good investment, if you can call just £15 an investment, as you will get more than your money’s worth from a game at such a reasonable price point.

Rating: 5/5 stars

RRP: £15

This product can be purchased from Exploding Kittens here.