Cat-a-Comb (EN)

A Battle of Wits in Nine Tiny Squares

Every move counts when the board is this small. Cat-a-Comb is a two-player abstract strategy game where tension builds with every cat placed — and where a single well-timed stack can flip the entire board state in your favour. It looks deceptively simple. It plays like a puzzle that keeps rearranging itself.

From ThunderGryph Games, Cat-a-Comb sets black and white against each other across a 3×3 grid of tiles. Each player commands six cat cubes, working to control the right tiles at the right height. On your turn, you either stack one of your cats onto an existing piece — creating a tower of colour-alternating cats — or you pick up a stack and walk it across the board, placing each cat in a chain of adjacent spaces. No two cats of the same colour can sit directly on top of each other, and no stack can rise above three cats high. These two constraints turn what sounds like a simple placement game into a constant negotiation of threats and opportunities.

Victory comes in two forms: top all three tiles of a single colour, or claim the top position on three separate stacks that are each at full height. Both conditions demand very different approaches — and your opponent knows it too.

Cat-a-Comb is perfect for players who love abstract strategy but want something that plays in fifteen to twenty minutes. It sits comfortably alongside classics like Hive or Patchwork for players who appreciate elegant rules with real strategic depth. The neutral brown cubes introduce a shared starting state that gives both players immediate decisions to make, so there is no slow warm-up — it is tense from the first move.

The compact format makes it ideal for a travel bag, a café table, or a quick game between heavier sessions. The tile-and-cube components are clean and tactile, and the alternating-colour rule gives the stacks a striking visual rhythm that makes the board state easy to read at a glance. ThunderGryph Games is known for producing games with a strong visual identity and components that feel considered rather than generic — Cat-a-Comb fits that reputation.