MEOW
MEOW Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 54 Cat Cards (cards from 1 to 18 in three colors)
- 27 Award Tokens (dry food, fishbone, fish and broken vase)
- 1 First Player Token
Setup
Shuffle all the Award Tokens face-down. Then, create 3 stacks of 9 tokens each face-down. Shuffle all the Cat Cards and create a face-down deck. The player who loves cats the most receives the First Player Token.
Overview
A game is divided into 3 rounds, each divided into 9 turns. Each player will play 1 Cat Card per turn, and the player who played the most valuable card will receive 1 Award Token. Keep in mind that not all awards are positive! At the end of the game, the player who collected more points will be the winner.
How to Play a Round
Take a stack of 9 Award Tokens and display them face-up in a row at the center of the table. You will play to win 1 Award Token after the other from left to right. Each player draws 9 Cat Cards from the deck.
Each round is divided in 9 turns. During each turn, the "starting player" (the player with the First Player Token is the "starting player" during the first turn; then, the "starting player" is the one who won the previous turn) plays a Cat Card from their hand, then all the other players must play a Cat Card from their hand in a clockwise order, following this simple rule:
You must always play a Cat Card of the same color of the card played by the "starting player". You can play another color only if you don't have any cards of that color in your hand.
Example: The "starting player" played a 8 blue card. You must now play either 5 blue or 13 blue.
When all players have played a card, the player who played the most valuable card takes the Award Token for that turn.
The most valuable card depends on all the other cards played. It can be:
- The card with the highest value of the same color of the card played by the "starting player".
- The green card with the highest value. Green cards are always more valuable than the other colors.
- If both cards number 1 and 18 of the same color have been played, during the same turn, card number 1 is considered to be the most valuable one.
Examples: the most valuable card between those played is 13 blue; the most valuable card between those played is 5 green; the most valuable card between those played is 1 green (played with 3, 14, 1, 18).
Discard the played cards. The winner for the current turn will be the "starting player" for the next turn, i.e. he/she will play the first card.
The round ends after 9 turns, when all the Award Tokens displayed have been taken and when all the players have played their Cat Cards. Shuffle all the Cat Cards, including those discarded, and create a new deck to play another round. Pass the First Player Token clockwise.
End of the Game
The game ends after 3 rounds, when all the Award Tokens have been taken. Sum up the value of all your tokens. The player with the highest value is the winner.
- Positive points: tokens show their positive value.
- Negative points: tokens show their negative value.
- Fishbone: You can discard a Fishbone token of your choice before the final count.
- Broken Vase: If you have 2 Broken Vase tokens, you lose 20 points. If you have only 1 Broken Vase token, it means that you were not caught and you don't lose any point!
Example: You score 13 points: you discard -5 token using the fish token and the only broken vase token is not counted.
Expert Variant
If you like to play a game with less luck and more strategy, remove some cards from the deck before playing. By doing so, all cards in play will be distributed between players.
Follow the chart below to see which cards must be removed.
| Players | Cards to remove |
|---|---|
| 2 Players | Remove cards from 6 to 17 of any color |
| 3 Players | Remove cards from 9 to 17 of any color |
| 4 Players | Remove cards from 12 to 17 of any color |
| 5 Players | Remove cards from 15 to 17 of any color |
| 6 Players | Don't remove any card |