Cats! The internet cannot get enough of them, and neither can I. Ikea! That’s also a thing people like. Let this handy allen key unlock new heights of near-2D felinity!

Do you remember those logic puzzles where Bob sits opposite a woman wearing a blue hat, Mandy is wearing a hat, and is sat to the right of Alberto, and Reverend Hawksby is deathly allergic to the colour blue, and is wearing only a strategically-positioned lotus flower? I was potentially good at those as a child, but didn’t have the mental room to manoeuver all the pieces. Thinkfun’s Cat Crimes finally enables adult  me to externalise similar logic problems using a crowd of extremely suspicious card kitties.

Have you seen the canary, Ginger?

Similarly to other Thinkfun titles, Cat Crimes offers a 40 pre-set ‘cases’ of increasing complexity. You’ll find ruined shoes, spilled drinks, and absent budgies, and nobody’s paws are clean. The production is phenomenal, the art offers more than mere cuteness, and the pieces are glossy and thick. Even the board has a separate elevated rug section because it’s nicer that way. The game itself has a limited lifespan, as once you’ve solved each puzzle, there’s no more mystery to be found, but Cat Crimes is hardboiled logic with adorable, guilty furballs, and made me feel like a very smart 8 year-old.

The fuzzy face of guilt.

What other hijinks can be had in the world of nigh-2D mogs and Macavitys? Cats love to be high up, loftily perching to stare down upon the naked thicko-kittens that serve them, and Cat Tower invites you to stack them higher still. Dressed in the unmistakable graphics of Aza Chen, Cat Tower is another Best In Show, and another one for children and drunk adults alike. A chunky wooden die dictates how you add foldy-card-cats to the tower until the inevitable ‘critical loss of dignity’ moment when it tumbles.

The Towering In-fur NO.

The aim is to play every card you have, and the tower’s collapse brings a penalty, not the game’s end, still it’s not going to outlast short attention spans, and there’s some potential for mildly nobbling other players. The Kickstarter edition includes both the Cat Tower Plus and Cat Tower Lite variants and their lack of availability at retail has limited the game’s potential. There are a few other tweaks to what is a very well-worn formula, but as sweet as it is, Cat Tower pales next to the tension and sheet physical heights of HABA’s Rhino Hero.

Ask not for whom the paw rolls

A cat’s daily routine isn’t all antics and mischief. Fortunately for everyone, Toppy Noppy has produced a collection of modest trapezoidal monuments to feline inertia: Cats on Stuff. This is a sharply printed, and precisely cut collection of indifferent papercraft moggies, and places for them to stubbornly sit. Requiring neither knife, nor glue, you can reenact accurate cat obstructions with a few simple folds and tab-tucks.

Pads on a pad

Will you choose ‘large cat on too-small box,’ ‘fluffy shedding on clean t-shirt,’ or the timeless ‘small, but immovable cat on warm laptop’? I’m particularly fond of the cuddly, smug cat, and the boss-eyed maniac. Simplicity is the key to Toppy Noppy designs, focusing on simple, sharp angles, clean lines, and bold patches of colour; this isn’t a construction challenge.

Boxcommander Fluffums surveys the field

I could call Cats on Stuff a cute desk toy, or a fun gift, and both of these things are true, but I found myself minutely adjusting the position of each cat until they looked just right as if installing an art exhibition in my own desk-based, cat-centric gallery. Though small and lightweight, the cats appear monolithic, inscrutable, and defiant. They are Cats. They are on Stuff. Your Stuff.

A Cat. On a Stuff.

Your move, human.

A little earlier this year, I found out that I’m going to be a dad, which is about the biggest news one can expect to receive, the joy and panic of which goes some way to explain my recent absence. so while you wait for Cardcore Gamer to become the sleep-deprived ranting of a frazzled pseudo-grownup, here’s what’s been distracting me in the world of board games: 

Babies aren’t much for board games, in fact they play only one game named Guess Who’s Pooped? in which there can be only one winner and it will not be you. As far as I understand it, these mini-people also syphon off a lot of your precious gaming time, but while I still have some, I followed up a rumour that El Cheapo UK book store The Works have been getting copies of some fair-to-good board game titles in stock, including Editions du Matagot’s 2008 beauty Giants. I jumped on this one like a big, pouncy cat-thing because I never got a chance to buy this one back in the day, so when the Derby shop finally received their wodge of boxes for £10 I was there like a shot.

A big, pouncy cat-thing.

Giants is a game about the Golden Age of Easter Island, before the deforestation and cannibalism rather spoiled things. You carve out giant Moai statues, drag them across the island, then optionally stick a hat on them for a laugh. The playing pieces (as with most Matagot games) are worth price of admission alone, but the game itself is a lovely medium-weight Euro. If you have any interest in worker placement games, Easter Island, or have a spare £10 to burn, buy it.

Deforestation hits Easter Island, but at least the Moai have hats!

At the start of this article I mentioned Leviathans, a colossal game of (sigh) ‘steampunk’ airship combat, set in the late 1900s. It’s pricey, but it’s had a hell of a lot of work put into making it a satisfyingly strategic flight of fancy and violence. While the release schedule is undeniably slow – the only current factions are England and France – there’s plenty of depth in the base game to keep me and my long-term nemesis throwing peurile curses over the battlefield for ages. You can read about it here.

The British destroyer (right) is about to be Rosbif.

There’s plenty more rattling around my braincase, such as why Soda Pop Miniatures haven’t released the new Super Dungeon Explore expansion in the UK yet, or the agony of waiting for the (now released! ARGH!) Spartacus expansion to turn up, or wrangling over whether I can justify buying Gears of War: The Board Game, given its rather large shelf price, but those are for another time. Now make sure you put on some sunscreen, drink lots of water and be home before it gets dark, or you’re all grounded!

JJ and his amazing friend Jason cram all of the internet into one podcast! Yep, we have sex talk, cats, insults, music, pop culture and profanity all crammed into one hour. Don’t believe us, well shame on you, but give it a listen anyway. How about it? Episode 190 means the countdown to 200 begins. If you have any suggestions for how episode 100 should play out, let me know…let’s do this!

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Now a certain friend of mine from a rather “emerald”-ish island may proclaim this song racist, however, this has been my personal favorite Bing Crosby Christmas song since childhood. Sure that song about that snowy holiday is pretty good, but it doesn’t move as well as this one.

And, if there is one thing the internet loves, it’s cats. So here you go.