Cuddly Cockroaches

Cuddly Cockroaches is a player elimination tabletop card game, inspired by the game maker’s real-life cockroach infestation that happened during the quarantine of Spring of 2020.

In Cuddly Cockroaches, players are neighbors in an apartment building with a Cockroach problem. Every turn starts with more cockroaches getting added to the game. Some cockroaches have special abilities that make them more desirable roommates - but they are also worth more points. The goal is to be the last apartment standing with less than ten roach points.

During a turn, players can use their cockroaches to infest their neighbors' apartments or play supply cards like bug spray or Exterminator to kill their roaches and send them to the basement. If a player has more than ten roach points at the end of their turn, they’ve lost the game! Losers turn over the apartment mat to reveal they’ve been fumigated, and their roaches scurry off to remaining apartments. The last apartment standing wins!

Infesting is the central mechanic in Cuddly Cockroaches. To infest, players pick a target neighbor, select any number of roaches from their apartment to infest with, and roll a die. To successfully infest, the dice roll has to be higher than the total value of roach points they’re infesting with. If successful, those roaches get sent to the target neighbor’s apartment. Roll equal or lower than the point value of roaches chosen for an infestation, and those roaches stay in the player’s apartment. Either way, the player attempting the infestation gets to draw a supply card.

Infesting challenges players to gauge their odds as they gamble to get rid of roaches. Bet conservatively, and risk the chance of getting fumigated before your neighbors over time. Take too much of a gamble, and risk never getting rid of your roaches. Supply cards can pass roaches from your apartment to your neighbors, add points to your dice roll or actions to your turn, or kill roaches and send them to the basement. But the only way to draw supply cards is by infesting, so players are rewarded for playing aggressively. Players get two actions per turn, any combo of infesting, playing a supply card, and shuffling their hand into the deck, and drawing three. Just like a real-life roach infestation, it’s a losing battle of bugs - but a lucky roll can be a game-changer!

Be a good neighbor, and share your roaches!

-description from publisher