If you know me, you probably know that I like board games. If you really know me you probably know that I create board games.
Today, my first board game, Cat Lady, is being released at GenCon. It’s also being published by top-of-the-line publisher AEG. I must say it’s a very surreal moment (to be honest I’m writing this about a week before this gets posted, but it’s surreal to me now and I’m sure it will only become more surreal the day of). I have worked on movies that have made millions of dollars and that was surreal, but this has my name on it. Nowhere to hide. AEG even decided to use my art. Seriously, there is nowhere to hide.
I’ve been having stress dreams about my game having some sort of weird misprint or rules mistake. Then again, if I wasn’t having these dreams they would probably be replaced by the ones where my teeth fall out and I’m naked at school. (Fun Fact: Josh’s most common stress dream is where he is about to take a final in a class he has been mysteriously absent from for most of the semester.)
Thank you again to all who have helped me.
Right now I’m working on over five new games. Let’s hope I can get another published in the next year.
Josh Wood Jokes 
How can I buy this game in Canada?
I suggest checking out this website- https://www.boardgameprices.com/prices/catlady
Currently in Canada it’s available a Quiche Games and it will soon be available at GeekStop Games.
Cat Lady is a very fun game with every game a different strategie. I like it a lot. @Josh: you should try Jaipur yourself. Guido from Holland
I love Jaipur. It’s probably my favorite 2 player game.
I absolutely love this game, congrats for it – both for the idea and the design.
I have a question. I’m not sure how LeVar Purrton scores. Should we choose one set of cats of any colour (so she worths 4 points or 0 points), or can she worth 12/8/4 points, depending on how many sets of cats someone has? Sorry, this is not clear for me.
Thank you for your answer in advance.
LeVar can be worth 0/4/8/12/… etc.
Thank you!!! 🙂
Hi Josh, we love playing cat lady,just one issue keeps coming up when we play. In my opinion if a player takes a row it should afterwards be refilled by placing the 3 top card of the deck from left to right on the empty row. If a column was taken it should be refilled from top to bottom in my opinion. Some of my friends think that the player who took the cards can determine how the empty slots are filled with the top 3 cards from the deck(e.g. first in the middle, 2nd on the right and 3rd on the left), some others say that the next player (whose turn it is next),can fill the empty slots in his desired sequence. What is your view on this? Thanks and best regards from Holland! Arnoud
The new cards should be placed randomly. I always do left to right and top to bottom. You can decide if you want it to be a different way as long as it is consistently throughout the game and not done to gain a competitive advantage.
Hi, thanks for the quick answer and happy new year. We decided to do two variants; a liberal version of the game, where the new cards are placed face down first and then revealed, and a conservative (more strategic) variant where the player who took the row/column takes the new cards one by one and decides after each card where to place it, to make the life of the next player a bit harder. As every player gets that choice after his turn, it adds some extra strategy to the game without giving anyone an extra advantage/disadvantage. I would like to hear your opinion as game designer, did you test this during testplay? Cheers, Arnoud
Honestly, the people at my company used to play where the cards were randomly place but the current player chose where the cat token moved to. When I was asked why I didn’t have it this way I replied that 9 times out of 10 the three newest cards are the best and that having to chose is not that fun of a decision and that it slowed down the game. I think your strategic version would work just fine and I see no harm in modifying the rules of it makes it more fun for you.
PS sorry for this late response I haven’t checked this in almost a year. I was just in Holland and had a great time. Happy Gaming!
My daughter and I just played for the first time, and we had a question regarding the cat token and the spray bottle. Does the cat token prevent ALL cards in the row/column from being picked up, or if, say, the cat is at the top row and I take the third column of cards, is that permissible? Also, does the spray bottle operate the exact same way as the cat token? We played it as the spray bottle freezes the entire row or column, so the other player could only take one of the other rows or columns, not something crosswise.
The cat token block only the newest row or column. So if the cat is at the top row, you can still take the 3rd column and take all 3 cards in it.
The spray bottle allows you to move the cat token. So if the token is blocking the top most row you can play the spray bottle to move the cat token to any other row or column. Now the top row isn’t blocked so you may take from it. Now the cards are replaced and the cat moves back to the topmost row. I’m short, the spray bottles allow you take the from the row or column the cat token is blocking.
You may also play it at the end of your turn to block your opponent, but I feel the first use is a much better use for the card.