This week we take a look at a cooperative cat dexterity game: Nekojima!  It can also be played competitively, but we focus on solo and cooperative play here.

There’s been a trend recently towards more cooperative cat games: just a few months ago, we saw and liked the cooperative cat game Hissy Fit! See our review here.

Going back a year to July 2023, we saw and loved the cooperative cat game Race To The Raft!  See our review here!  We liked it so much it made our Top 10 Cooperative Games of 2023!

Will Nekojima fare as well as Hissy Fit and Race To The Raft?  Let’s take a look!

Unboxing And Gameplay

We got the deluxe wooden Collector’s Edition: see above (it  comes with some extras).  We’ll talk about what’s there, but we will focus on what comes in the base game.

This is a cooperative dexterity game where players place poles and cats! See above! If the poles ever fall over, players lose!  It’s kind of like cooperative Jenga …

The poles must be placed on the platform above: notice how there are 4 different colored regions!

Each turn, a player will roll two dice (see above), and the dice will indicate where the two regions to place the poles in!

There are three different variety of poles: blue, red, and white.  See above. 

The pole color you draw each turn is chosen by drawing a cube from a bag!  See above as the white cube is drawn, and the two poles have to go between the red and green districts on the platform!

If players draw a black cube (see above), they must also place a cat (see below) to hang from the poles!

The goal of the game is to build your poles as long as you can without toppling them! Like I said, kind of like Jenga! (Well, reverse-Jenga because you add wood blocks here, whereas you takeaway wood blocks in Jenga).

Every cube you draw is placed in a Level score chart: this shows you what your “score” is at the current stage!

If a single pole falls over, it’s game over!  Your score is the last level you achieved!  Actually, when one pole falls … generally all of them fall!  See above!

That’s the basics of Nekojima! See the components above!

Rulebook

The rulebook describes the basic rules pretty well: see above.  The set-up and components are described above on page 1 in one fell swoop.

The rules are like 4 pages! You’ll notice (if you look closely above), there are some restrictions on how the poles are placed (you can never touch the wire, you can never wrap the cord, etc).

You’ll also notice how the rulebook commits the cardinal sin as being the same size as the square box: it gets a B- or C+ on The Chair Test as the rulebook flops around and hangs over the edges,

The rulebook is short: the game is easy to describe!  The only difference (really) between cooperative and competitive is in the focus: play still keep building poles and adding cats until everything falls down.  In the cooperative game, all players worked together to get the best score and win/lose together! In the competitive game, the person who knocked the poles over is the loser … only one loser and everyone else wins!   The mode changes the unfolding of the game a little, as the cooperative players will try to set-up their compatriots for easier moves, but the competitive players will try to set-up their foes for harder moves! 

Solo Mode

The solo mode is described on the last page of the rulebook: see above.  Thank you for following Saunders’ Law and having a solo mode for this cooperative game!

Basically, the solo player just keeps adding blocks and cats as long as possible  …

… until the poles fall over.  Whatever the highest level is (see above) is the solo player’s score!

Solo mode worked great for learning the game: it was basically the same set of rules as the cooperative game!   The solo player does the best he can to set-up the next player (who just happens to be himself) for easier placements!   

I mean, from scratch, I learned the game and played the game in 15 minutes. It was very easy to get this to the table.

Cooperative Mode

Cooperative mode works great.

The first game ended quickly in heartbreak as the poles fell over.

Undeterred, my friends wanted to play again to do better!  THIS time, we stood up!  We stood away from the table so as not to shake it!  We did everything we could to prevent any “accidental mishaps!”

We made it much farther in the second playthrough! See above. But alas, the poles will always fall!

The great thing about the cooperative play is that people seemed to want to play again!  

Too Many Expansions?

There are waaaaaaay too many ways to play this game!  See 4 variants above!

There’s another two variants that comes with the Collector’s Edition as well!

But in the end, my friends and I were happy with just the base game.  I am not convinced we will ever play anything beyond the base game.  It’s nice that all these expansions are in the box, but the extra expansions seem to “muddy up” the experience.

Abstract or Thematic?

This is a fun cooperative dexterity game, but it’s probably more an abstract game … that just happens to have cats.  Nekojima seems to really lean try to lean into the cat theme!  See the cat placemat that came with the game!  The cat tokens are nice!

But, at the end of the day, this is probably an abstract cooperative game. Just don’t tell the cat lovers.

Some Issues

The Collector’s Edition BARELY fits in the box: in fact, it strains the clasp on the wooden box.  And the stuff that came with it? 

The extra dice tray is problematic as the dice bounce right out! And the extra game mode with the arches (see above) … ??? I will probably never play that mode, as cool as it looks.

If you find yourself interested in this game, I don’t think it’s worth getting the Collector’s Edition: just pick up the base game.  You’ll be happier for it and have saved a little more money.

Conclusion

I got Nekojima delivered from Kickstarter sometime in 2023.  Unfortunately, because I get so many games, this one just kinda slipped through the cracks.

Nekojima is a fun, cooperative dexterity game that leans pretty heavily into the cat theme … but it’s still pretty much an abstract game.  The cats do make it cuter though.

Nekojima would probably make my Top 10 Cooperative Dexterity Games if I ever redo that list.  This is probably a solid 7 out of 10 overall, with the cooperative game being more fun than the solo game.

I suspect Nekojima will be played quite a bit at RichieCon 2024 this year: there are a number of people who love their cat games and this game just looks so great set-up on the table.

Appendix: Furoshiki

One of the things that “seems” to be in the base box is a cat placemat.

I thought it was just a placemat for the game.  Nope!

Nope! Apparently, it’s for Furoshiki! See the back of the pamphlet above! It’s about the art of folding and carrying things.

I thought it looked nice as a cat placemat.