Premise
Strap your boots on, pull on your gloves, and grab your nearest catnip toy because it is time for us to save some cats in Cleocatra!
Cleopatra needs some assistance, and it is up to you, good player, to take up the mantle of cat rescuer. Under the appointment of Queen Cleopatra herself, players work as Egyptian cat rescuers to infiltrate the Pyramids and rescue the beloved, the adorable, and the beautiful cats.
The Game
Premise
Strap your boots on, pull on your gloves, and grab your nearest catnip toy because it is time for us to save some cats in Cleocatra!
Cleopatra needs some assistance, and it is up to you, good player, to take up the mantle of cat rescuer. Under the appointment of Queen Cleopatra herself, players work as Egyptian cat rescuers to infiltrate the Pyramids and rescue the beloved, the adorable, and the beautiful cats.
The Game
Cleocatra is a pretty simple game once you get started. Choose a colour and select the corresponding meeples and score token. Shuffle the Pyramid tiles (or if you are helpless at shuffling, like me, then have someone else do it for you) and place them face down into a draw pile. During the first round, each player will draw from the stack until it is exhausted, placing tiles adjacent to one another depending on the highest scoring pattern.
Per turn, each player can perform the following actions: they may take a tile and then place a rescuer meeple on top of the tile, therefore securing this for future scoring. Otherwise, a player may perform two rescuer actions. The only exception to this rule is when a player chooses to score, which is always carried out at the start of a turn and therefore immediately ends the player’s turn.
When performing a tile action, there are two variants to this. “Scout” allows the player to draw a tile from the stack created during setup. At the same time, “search” enables the player to select a tile unoccupied by a rescuer meeple and relocate it to another adjacent tile.
Cleocatra also allows the player three further variants of the rescuer action. “Dispatch” is vital for relocating rescuer meeples from one tile to another, which can assist in gaining more points; however, never have more than two rescuers on a single tile, regardless of the colour. Players can also utilise their meeples to “team up” through the tactical placement on adjacent tiles. Finally, this will allow players to “rescue” cats during the scoring process by counting meeples as helpers if placed on adjacent tiles, which are then removed and replaced with an inspector token.
Battle it out against your friends (either 1-v-1 or up to four people) until someone reaches 23 points. If you manage this, you can consider yourself the best Egyptian Cat Rescuer there is!
This is a fun and strategic game for quick thinking and outwitting. Players will be quickly swept up into the easy competition of trying to defeat their opponent while performing their actions to the very best of their ability. Compact and easily stored, Cleocatra is the ideal game to take on the go for a catch-up.
Components such as the inspectors were a very intriguing angle for the gameplay. Placed following the scoring of a rescuer who had been secured on a tile, the inspector now acts as an obstacle of sorts. By preventing the scoring of rescuers if co-habiting a tile, placing these inspectors tactically can truly make or break how successful your gameplay will be.
Simply purrfect for cat lovers and history buffs everywhere, Cleocatra is an extremely simple game to learn and quick to play.
