Un, Deux, Trois, Cat!
A dexterity game for 2–6 players, played with real felt cat toys. Everyone flips a card at once. Grab the toy shown in its own color before anyone else does, or grab the cat when nothing is.
- Players
- 2–6
- Genre
- Dexterity · Speed · Spotting
- For fans of
- Ghost Blitz · Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza
- Length
- About 10 minutes · 10 to 15 quick rounds
- Components
- 60 cards, five felt cat toys and a felt cat
- Box
- 8 × 8 × 3 in two-piece box
Overview
The pitch
Chant “un, deux, trois, cat!” and everyone flips their top card at the same moment. Each card shows one of five toys, almost always wearing another toy’s color. If any card shows a toy in its own color, grab that toy from the middle of the table. If none does, grab the cat. The whole table builds each round’s puzzle together, so nobody knows the answer until the cards land.
Real toys, real grabs
Five felt cat toys and a felt cat sit in the middle. You don’t slap a pile, you pounce on a mouse. The cards are painted to match the toys exactly.
Built by the table
The answer depends on every card flipped at once, so your own card can be the answer for everyone else. With more players there’s more to scan, and more chances for two toys to be right.
Decoys on purpose
Every wrong color belongs to another toy. A green mouse pulls your eye to the fish; a blue bird makes you think ball. Fast hands are not enough.
One deck, 2 to 6
Deal all sixty cards out and play until they’re gone: 10 to 15 rounds. With two or three players everyone flips two cards, so the table always has plenty to read.
One toy in its own colorGrab that toy. The green fish is a fish in its own color.
Two toys in their own colorsBoth are right. Two players can score, one toy each.
Nothing in its own colorGrab the cat. It’s never on a card.Components
Five toys, five colors
Each toy has its own color: a yellow bird, a green fish, a blue ball, a pink mouse and an orange butterfly. It appears on twelve cards, three times in its own color and nine times wearing another toy’s color.
One toy, five ways. Only the pink mouse is a mouse in its own color. The other four are decoys, and each one wears the color of a different toy.
In the box
- 60Cards, poker-sized: twelve per toy, painted in gouache
- 5Felt cat toys: bird, fish, ball, mouse and butterfly, each one solid color
- 1Felt cat, the grab when nothing is in its own color
- 1Rules sheet
Mockups show a proposed production version: felt toys made to match the card art, in an 8 × 8 × 3 in two-piece box.
Mockups
Rendered from the card and box art on a linen cloth.
Play
Race the cats
The game runs below. No download or account needed.
Sell sheet
One page for your review meeting
The pitch, a round told in three panels, the box, specs, contact and a QR code to the playable demo, on a single landscape page ready to print or forward.
Print and play · on request
Want it on your table?
An eleven-page kit: two pages of rules, seven sheets holding all sixty cards with crop marks, a sheet of card backs and six cut-out toy tokens. Or skip the tokens and grab five small things in the five colors. Email me and I’ll send it over.
Setup
Put the five toys and the cat in the middle, in everyone’s reach. Deal out all 60 cards face down: 30 each for two players, 20 for three, 15 for four, 12 for five, 10 for six.
The flip
Everyone chants “un, deux, trois, cat!” and on “cat!” flips the top card of their pile face up. With two or three players, everyone flips two cards.
What to grab
Any toy shown in its own color, on anyone’s card: grab it. Several different toys in their own colors: each is a correct grab, one per player. Nothing in its own color: grab the cat.
Scoring
Everyone holding a correct toy keeps the card they flipped as a point. Everyone else discards theirs. Toys go back in the middle and you chant again.
Wrong grabs
Grab the wrong thing and you let go. You’re out for the rest of the round, and you discard one of your scored cards, if you have any.
Game end
Everyone runs out of cards on the same round. Most cards wins. Tied? Deal everyone one more card from the discards and flip once more; only the tied players may grab.
Interested in Un, Deux, Trois, Cat?
Ask for a prototype or a walkthrough call with your team, or meet me at a convention.
