Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition

To set up, place the research board in the center of the table. The size and values of the research board depend on the player count and the chosen card side (white or purple). Each player receives a player board and 12 tokens of their chosen symbol, with four tokens initially placed on the 'X' spaces of their player board. The deck of cards (numbered 1-9, with five copies of each) is shuffled, and cards not used for the current player count (e.g., 7-9 for a 3-player game) are removed. At the start of each round, the remaining cards are evenly distributed among players. Each player then discards one card face down, out of play for the round. Players then secretly predict how many tricks they will win this round by placing a token on their player board's prediction track. For a 3-player game, players can predict 1, 3, or 4 tricks. For a 2-player game, there are no predictions, and a different rule set applies for bonus scoring.

The objective of Cat in the Box: Deluxe Edition is to accumulate the most points by the end of the game. Points are primarily earned by winning tricks and by successfully predicting the number of tricks you will take each round. Additionally, players can score bonus points by forming connected groups of their tokens on the research board, which tracks the declared colors and values of played cards. Avoiding paradoxes, which result in negative points, is also crucial for success.

Starting with the player who most recently encountered a cat (or the first player in the initial round), players take turns playing one card from their hand. When playing a card, the player declares its color (green, yellow, blue, or red) and places one of their tokens on the corresponding number and color space on the research board. The declared color must be available on the research board (i.e., no other player's token is on that specific number-color combination), and the player must have an eligible token on their player board for that color (i.e., the 'X' space for that color is not covered). Players are not required to follow the suit (color) led by the first player in a trick. However, if a player chooses to play a different color than the one led, they must remove their token from the led color on their player board, making that color ineligible for them for the rest of the round. The red color is always the trump suit. A player cannot lead a trick with the trump suit until a trump card has been played in a previous trick. If a player cannot legally play any card (due to all available number-color combinations being taken on the research board or all their eligible colors being blocked), a paradox occurs.

At the end of each round, players first score one point for every trick they have won. Then, players check their predictions. If a player correctly predicted the number of tricks they would win, they score bonus points. These bonus points are equal to the number of tokens in their largest connected group on the research board. Tokens are considered connected if they are adjacent horizontally or vertically. If a player caused a paradox during the round, they receive minus one point for every trick they won and are disqualified from receiving any bonus points for correct predictions. If a player incorrectly predicted their tricks, they do not receive any bonus points. In a 2-player game, players do not make predictions; instead, they are qualified for bonus scoring if they won four or fewer tricks. If qualified, they score bonus points based on their largest connected group of tokens on the research board.

The game concludes after a number of rounds equal to the number of players (e.g., three rounds in a 3-player game). After the final round's scoring is completed, all players tally their total points accumulated across all rounds. The player with the highest total score is declared the winner. In the event of a tie, the player who scored the most points in the very last round wins. If there's still a tie, the tied players share the victory.