Title: Fort: Cats and Dogs Expansion
Designed By: Nick Brachmann and Grant Rodiek
Art by: Kyle Ferrin
Published By: Leder Games
Released: 2021
Player Count: 2-4
Time to Play: 20-40 Minutes
Ages: 10+
The time has finally come! Your house is about to get even cooler. You've begged, you've pleaded, you used the puppy-lip and it all paid off! Your parents are getting you a pet! Cats and Dogs have come to Fort.
In this expansion to the super popular deck-building game about trying to be the kid with the coolest fort, you can now add in two modules (cats and dogs) to add some new challenges to the game!
How to Play:
Fort: Cats and Dogs is really two separate expansion modules that can be played together or independently.
For the Dogs expansion, players will work to add as many dogs to their doghouse as possible. Each player starts with 3 dog cards and 5 kid cards (instead of the usual 8). Put unused dogs back in the box. For a more advanced game you can include the dogs in the draft along with kid cards.
At the start of your turn if you have any dogs in your yard, they will wander over to your neighbors discard pile instead of your own (they are looking for someone to spoil them rotten and you clearly aren't doing a good enough job).
On your turn, if you wish to play a dog card from your hand, you do so instead of playing a kid card. You must meet the dog's requirements in order to play them though. Follow any action's listed on the dog's card and then typically at the end of your turn you move the dog to your doghouse.
At the end of the game, whoever has the most dogs in their doghouse scores 7 points.
For the Cats expansion, you goal is to get cats to come to your yard and stay. But unlike dogs, cats are more fickle and tend to stray from yard to yard.
To get started with the cats modules, shuffle the cats and add one cat card per player to a face-up row near the victory track. Put the unused cats back in the box.
In order to attract a cat, at the end of your turn check to see if you meet any of the conditions shown by the cats. If so put the cat face-up near your player board. If another player ever meets it's condition, they steal the cat.
On your turn, should a cat still be in your yard, make sure you pay attention to what triggers the cats power. Many cats are triggered before you play a card.
At the end of the game you score points based on how many cats you have. The more cats you have the more each cat is worth.
As we mentioned above you can play cats and dogs separately or together!
What's purr-ty cool:
The first thing that is awesome about the expansion actually has nothing to do with the gameplay, but instead with the storage of that game. The Fort: Cats and Dogs expansion fits perfectly inside the main box. I am not talking about taking the cards out and putting them inside the main box. I mean the entire expansion, tuckbox and all fits into the existing storage solution provided with Fort. This makes it super easy to keep it separate from the base game, while still not taking up extra shelf space.
We loved adding the cats and dogs expansion to fort. We think it makes an already awesome game even better. It adds some additional challenges to work into your deckbuilding puzzle.
The dogs were particularly interesting as you had to prioritize them differently than other cards in your deck. Since any cards you don't play go to your yard, any dogs you have that don't get played automatically wind up there. However, unlike your kid cards, even if another player does not claim them from your yard, you do not get them back in your deck at the start of your next turn. Having the dogs move to your neighbors yard was a cool twist.
We like that the cats add a challenge of playing specific types of cards in hopes of getting the bonus. You never know if your plan will work out exactly as intended since the cat could be gone before it is your turn again. The cats offer good bonuses though and are definitely worth trying to get and hold onto.
We really enjoyed how easy it was to add in both expansions and how it doesn't impact play time. The pets cards are really cute and make a wonderful addition to the game.
The cat's meow:
"Just a friendly reminder that cats rule and dogs drool!" - Pudgy Cat
Disclosure: Pudgy Cat Games was provided a copy of this game in exchange for a review, however, this review reflects the honest thoughts of the author.