I got a few.. interesting… reactions to my streaming of this game. As near as I can tell, they weren’t from regular viewers or readers. But nevertheless, I figure I should point out that I’ve had this game in my review pile for long enough that current world events don’t have any direct impact on the game or timing of this review. Any assumption of my political stance on said world events is probably pretty close, but completely irrelevant.
In the far far far future, humans are gone. Other creatures have evolved and taken to space, however. Enter “The Rat Pack,” evil rats determined to control the galaxy under their fascist regime. Now enter the cats. Hated by The Rat Pack, cats are starting to stand up for their freedom and the freedom of others. In Space Cats Fight Fascism you take on the role of the feline freedom fighters. There are eight cats on four double-sided cards to choose from. Each cat has their own special ability that will help give the galaxy back to the people… er… cats.
If you’ll indulge me for a moment. A fun story about when I first encountered Space Cats Fight Fascism. I told the publisher the game looked great, but I wasn’t sure I could review the game in good conscience. They rightly looked at me with some confusion and asked me why not. That’s when I introduced myself and my website, TheRatHole.ca. They laughed. I laughed. Not all rats are fascists, you know. Ok, back to the review at hand.
To set up the game, you shuffle up the 12 numbered planet cards and deal them out into a 4×3 grid on the table. Each cat starts on a different home planet. Each of those home planets and all the even-numbered planets start the game with blue fascist cubes on them. Deal out two Resist cards to each player, and you’re ready to play.
On each cat’s turn, they can take three actions. Choosing between moving to one adjacent planet, fighting fascism (removing fascist cubes from the current planet), playing a Resist card, or restocking (drawing new Resist cards). It’s pretty straightforward. The Resist cards are the most complex part. Most of them are easy, but some of the cards have two options. An immediate effect or a new action or power that your cat can take on their turn. Some are automatic, COUGH UP HAIRBALLS for example, lets you Heal 1 and remove 1 Fascist or whenever you play a Heal 1 card you can draw a bonus resist card. MASSIVE CAT JUMP lets you Teleport to any other planet now, then Heal 1 or spend one action and take one Scratch to Teleport without playing another card. Does that seem like it could make the game extra easy? Well it doesn’t. Cats can only take four Scratches worth of damage before bad things happen. The cat doesn’t die, but if they need to take a Scratch and can’t, the Fascism Scale goes up and any New Power cards they have in play are discarded.
The most important immediate Resist cards add two Liberation Cubes to the current planet if there are no Fascists there. These cards are specifically labelled for certain planets, categorized as Whiskers, Tails, Paws, and Ears. When there are four Liberation cubes on one of each of those planet types, the players win.
At the end of each cat’s turn, that player rolls the twelve-sided Fascism Dice. If the Fascism Scale is on 1-6 you roll two dice, if it’s at 7-12, you roll three dice, and if you removed any Fascists you reduce the number of dice to a minimum of one. Every planet whose number is rolled gets a Fascism Cube added to it. If there are Liberation Cubes on that planet, remove those instead of adding Fascists. If planets 9. 10, 11, or 12 are rolled, also draw and resolve a Galactic News card. These are almost always bad and often increase the Fascism Scale. Finally, if you rolled a planet with a cat on it, those cats each take 1 Scratch, increasing the Fascism Scale if they are already maxed out.
If the Fascism Scale reaches 13, the players lose. If three or more planets have four Fascist Cubes, the players lose. If all 20 Fascist Cubes have been placed, the players lose.
The game is easy to learn, but like most co-op games, it’s hard to win. While I was streaming it, one of my viewers said they believe a cooperative game should only be won 25% of the time. Now, I think that’s a little low. However, I agree in principle. When you are playing a competitive game, someone wins and everyone else loses. So why should it be any different when that someone else is the game itself? One of the more popular co-op games is Pandemic. Space Cats Fight Fascism gives big Pandemic vibes. You have to play aggressively, or The Rat Pack can rapidly get out of control.
Despite the awful depiction of my fellow rats, this is a fun game. You can increase or decrease the difficulty by increasing or decreasing where on the Fascism Scale the game begins, so there’s always an appropriate level of challenge.
You can find The TESA Collective online at tesacollective.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/TESACollective .
[David Chapman]
