How to Play The Isle of Cats: Drafting, Fish, Rescues & Boat Placement
The Isle of Cats is a five-day drafting and polyomino-placement game. Players spend fish on cards and cat rescues, then fit rescued cats onto personal boats while building color families and completing Lesson objectives.
Scope: standard competitive base game for 1–4 players; Family Mode and expansions are separate.
Phase 1: Fishing
At the start of each day, every player gains 20 fish. Fish pays for Discovery cards and for rescuing cats later in the day.
Phase 2: Explore and draft Discovery cards
Each player receives seven cards, keeps two and passes the rest, repeating until all seven are drafted. Then decide which drafted cards to buy by paying the fish cost shown on each card; cards you do not buy are discarded.
Phase 3: Read Lessons
Place purchased Lesson cards face down as personal end-game objectives. Public Lesson effects, when present in the chosen standard setup, affect all players according to their text.
Phase 4: Rescue Cats
Use Basket cards/permanent baskets plus fish to rescue cats from the island. Turn order for rescue is determined by boot/speed icons on played rescue cards. Each rescued cat must be placed immediately on your boat.
Tile placement must stay connected
Your first cat may be placed anywhere legal on the boat; later cat and treasure tiles must connect to your existing tile layout according to the placement rules. Covering treasure maps with a matching-color cat can award common treasure pieces.
Phase 5: Rare Finds
Play Oshax and Treasure cards in turn. Oshax can be assigned a cat color when placed, helping complete families and Lessons. Treasure tiles are useful for filling awkward gaps and covering rats/rooms.
After day 5, score the boat
Score cat families, rare treasures and completed Lessons, then subtract visible-rat and unfilled-room penalties. Highest score wins.