My first encounter with UK based design team Worgan Games was in a very spur of the moment purchase of their title Sneaky Goose online. It was December of 2024 and having just finished a co-op playthrough of “untitled goose game” it seemed like a logical next step.
Little did I know we would spending the holidays enraptured by this small deck of cards, suspicions, and schemes, and of course, Geese.
Fast forward to UKGE of 2026 and we quite literally stumble across the team behind our obsession in the middle of the show floor. The team are fantastic people and were eager to show off not only their “spooky” goose themed deck of cards, but also their next project, Curiosity Killed the Cat. They also signed a couple of cards for us, probably my partner’s highlight of the expo this year!
We were instantly keen to see more, and I was honoured to now receive a prototype copy of the new title in the post this summer to take a look at further.
I tell you all of this to lay my cards on the table quite literally before I tell you, I think this game is great, and I will be personally fighting to the front of the queue for my pledge when this launches later in September.
Like their previous Goose themed title, in Curiosity, social deduction is the name of the game. Your turn consists of learning the next card in the deck and offering to another player. Now, they can accept it, or lose one of their nine lives to reject it, but they must do that based purely on what you tell them the card is (you might not always tell the truth…). If they do reject the card then it becomes their job to convince someone else to accept the card instead. And play continues until that card is played out to whoever accepts, or back to you if everyone rejects it.
And that is the basics, everyone has nine lives and you want to be the last one standing. The cards themselves have various powers; most basically to gain/lose lives in multiple numbers, but also to steal life tokens from other players. And add into the mix several rituals (a communal set collection where the last player completing the set gain a vital victory point and a powerful ability to use in play), and a rock/paper/scissors cat fight card which can be used to gain/lose lives in full handfuls.
Now, I won’t lie, our first playthrough was a very long game. But that was “driver error”, in that I had missed out the rule of consequences for rejecting a card, meaning that everyone could reject everything which didn’t seem beneficial and stay in the round. I definitely saw why that rule was needed, and a small glimpse into the minds of game designers!
Second play and beyond worked much better, and with very minimal setup required this quickly became a go-to title. Advice from those experiences, sometimes it’s actually better to tell the truth! Help a rival to weaken others who are closer to those all important points. When it’s one point per round and only 3 points to win the game, everything counts!
More advice: keep your eyes on the rituals! One game I was complacent, 2 rounds in, I had both points, I couldn’t lose, or so I thought! Each of the three rituals grants a points as well, so in a single third round I lost it all as two of the rituals went to a single player and they beat me out for the pivotal last point!
My only critique of the game is my teaching of it to begin with! The artwork is as fun and whimsical as their previous games, and with more coming in the final release compared to the prototype I had, I cannot wait to see the final result.
Curious? You should be, check it out when this one comes to kickstarter later this month!
