The game includes the 22 major arcana cards from a tarot deck — all bearing fetching cat illustrations by Nekoya Houjyudou — and to set up, you deal the cards out evenly among the 3-6 players. (Games with two players have special rules.) On a turn, you name a number, and whoever has that card (if anyone) places it face down in the center of the table. If you have only one card in hand, you may give two consecutive numbers instead of a single number, and both of those cards are discarded. If you run out of cards, you're out of the game, and whoever last has cards in hand wins.
That's it! Is there more to playing than remembering which numbers have been called? I don't know as I haven't played, but I love the cover art, so I wanted to highlight the game anyway.
• あ~した天気にニャ~れ!! (Wishing for Fine Weather!!), which debuted at the Tokyo Game Market in November 2019 from designer Dice-K and publisher ビストロ怪談倶楽部 (Bistro Kaidan Club), is a trick-taking game in which the players are cat gods who get to play with rain, snow, and other weather conditions. Some details:
At the start of each of the three rounds, players reveal one of the eight scoring conditions to determine how many points positive or negative each card of a suit is worth in this particular round (-3 to +3). Players then play out the round, trying to collect tricks — or dodge them! — to maximize their score.
Here's an overview of this 3-6 player card game:
Each round, each player is dealt four cards from the 24-card deck. Each of the eight types of cards has a value on it as well as a special ability. Each player chooses one card from their hand, then they reveal these cards in clockwise order from the starting player. Players then do this again two more times, leaving them with one card in hand.
Your score for the round is the sum of the value of the card in your hand and the value of the cards you played. Normally the player with the highest score earns 5 points, with the players in second and third earning 3 and 1 points respectively — but if a player has played two "Pandora Cat" cards, then the player with the lowest score earns 5 points! If two players have each played two "Pandora Cat" cards, then scoring is normal, whereas three players having done this reverses the score once again.
Rotate the start player position each round, and complete multiple rounds until a player has scored at least 12, 14, or 16 points in a three-player, four-player, or five- or six-player game.
Can you make it home with piles of loot, or will you just be another scaredy cat?