Ahoy! Kitten: Fishy Piracy On The High Seas

Guess where your opponents will go for fish, and try to avoid them or steal fish right out from under them in this quick little kitten-filled pirate game.

Published by Mayday Games and coming soon to Kickstarter, Ahoy! Kitten is a game of set collection and simultaneous gameplay. The game plays in 15 minutes and is designed for 2-6 players.

Gameplay

Each player takes a cat character tile. Ocean tiles equal to the number of players minus one are placed in the center of the table. Two fish tokens are drawn from the bag and placed on each ocean tile.

During the first round, everyone counts to three and then points simultaneously at an ocean tile. If you are the only player pointing at a tile, you take all the fish from that tile and move them to your character tile. If more than one player is pointing at a tile, the fish stay on that ocean tile. At the end of the round, you draw one fish to add to each ocean tile that still has fish on it, and two fish for any ocean tile that is empty.

On subsequent rounds, play is the same, only you can also steal all the fish from another player’s character tile by pointing at it instead of at an ocean tile. As with the ocean tiles, if anyone else points there as well, no one gets to steal from it. Instead of pointing at another tile, you can cover your own character tile to claim your fish. This keeps the fish safe from any theft attempts and also protects them for the rest of the game: you remove them from your character tile and set them aside. However, if you protect your fish, you have to sit out the next round.

Players are allowed to talk before pointing and try to reach agreements, but there is nothing to guarantee that a player will follow through once an agreement is reached and there are no penalties if you don’t. They are pirate kittens after all.

The game ends once all the fish have been drawn from the bag and the final round is completed. Players score their fish on their character tiles and any they protected during the game. A set of three different colored fish (blue, yellow, and red) are worth five points, any extra fish that do not complete a set are worth one point, and the special white fish are worth two points. The player with the most points wins.

Review

Ahoy! Kitten is very simple and very fun. Rounds are fast, and there’s a lot of interaction, laughing, and conversation as you try to guess where players will point or try to persuade them to point elsewhere. It’s fun to choose when to protect your fish, or when to try to steal from other players. There’s some push-your-luck here as you balance whether to go after bigger piles of fish in hopes everyone else will be too scared to try it, or play it safe and point at ocean tiles with fewer fish…although everyone else might be thinking the same thing.

The artwork is really fun, with the different cat characters all having unique styles. The fish tokens are also quite pretty and colorful and overall the game just looks lovely and cheery.

It’s a straightforward little game, and might not have long staying power with everyone, but if you lean into the discussions, it adds a lot to the gameplay. Consequently, we preferred it with slightly more players as there’s more of that interaction, theft, and tiles to vie for. There is a two-player variant, but this felt like the game wasn't at its best.

Ahoy! Kitten is fast and fun, and just really easy to play. Rules are simple to teach and setup is done in less than a minute. It’s a great casual game that would be very fun to play over dinner with good friends.

Pros: Great components, fast gameplay, lots of player interaction

Cons: Two player variant feels like it's missing some of the charm of the game

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.