Purrfect Place

• Designer: River Kang
• Publisher: Korea Boardgames
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

Swap, flip, and stack the cats! Move cat cards from the sofa to the shelf, or the shelf to the playtime area. Make two rows match with each other and score minus(-) points. The player with the lowest score wins a bottle. Collect two bottles to triumph in this adorable and strategic cat game!

• Packed with irresistibly cute (and totally relatable) cat illustrations.
• Easy-to-learn gameplay with a clever stacking twist for added depth.
• Stacking: Score double minus(-) points and an extra turn, but only at the risk of a big penalty!

The deck is 54 cards; 4 copies each of 1-10 and kittens, and then 10 copies of rank 11.  This deck is shuffled and players are dealt a starting hand (6 cards in 4p, 8 cards in 2-3p).  These cards remain face down and are organized into two equal rows.  The rest of the deck is placed as a draw pile and the top card is revealed to start the discard pile.

Each player now chooses any one of their cards and reveals it – putting it back in the same location.  The player with the highest number showing becomes the start player.

On a turn, the active player takes either the top card from the discard pile or the top card from the deck and then does one of three actions:

• Swap a card – remove a card from your area, placing it face up on the discard pile.  Put the new card in that location
• Flip a card – if you drew a card from the deck, you can discard that card face up on the discard pile and then flip over any previously existing card in your area
• Stack a card – If the card you drew adds up to 11 with any visible cards in your area, you can stack them together.  The stack must always have a value of 11  (a kitten card is wild and adds up to 11 with any other card).  The stack now acts as a single card, and it can be swapped as a whole.  

Now, check to see if any of the columns in your area have the same value.  If so, move them off to the side (to your “playtime area”).

Continue playing until one player has no face-down cards in their area at the end of their turn. Players now tally their points.  Single face up cards are worth the number on them (solo kittens are worth 0), and stacks are worth 11. Every card in your playtime area is minus 1 point.  The player with the least points gets a bottle.  The winner is the first player to have two bottles. 

My thoughts on the game

Purrfect Place is a new take on the Golf / Skyjo / Cabo genre of games.  Your goal here is to have the lowest points, which usually means clearing off the most pairs of cards; though it’s important to remember that the round end is triggered when any player has NO facedown cards left… and that the player who triggers the end of the round is certainly not guaranteed to be the one with the lowest point total.

As with all games of this genre, there is a bit of luck involved in the play – sometimes you get lucky and flip up just the right card at the right time and you make an unexpected match or get a low scoring card on your board.  There is very limited interaction between the players – really the only thing I would think about doing is looking at the board of the player after me to make sure that I don’t put the card that they want on top of the discard pile… I mean, on top of the sofa.  I didn’t mention it earlier but the rules give cute-sy cat related names to the deck (the box) and the discard pile (the sofa); but I’ve found that this just confuses people to not use the universally accepted gaming terms for these things.

Each hand moves along rapidly, and generally there isn’t too much time spent on any given turn.  If the top of the discard pile is desirable, then you take it – otherwise you draw the top card of the deck.  Then, it’s just a matter of deciding what to do with that card.  Making a stack does give you the benefit of another play, but that also saddles your board with an 11 point stack until you can clear it.  You do get an extra turn when you do this, so that gives you a chance to come up with a play to improve your situation.  Additionally, when you discard a stack, you get an extra card (worth an extra -1 point) into your playtime stack.  Oh, I mean scoring pile.  

As the game ends when someone has won two hands, the game will never go longer than N+1 rounds – and each round usually takes but a few minutes.  As a result, Purrfect Place is the sort of game that will never outstay its welcome.  It’s an easy going game that works well as a filler or a closer.  Even with the changes to the tried and true Skyjo family, a newbie can learn all the rules to Purrfect Place in about a minute, and surely after the first hand, all will be locked in the mind.

If you’re a fan of Skyjo / Golf / Cabo / etc, this is a nice variant and worth playing. If you don’t have any of those yet, it would certainly be a great introduction to this family of card games.

Until your next appointment

The Gaming Doctor