Gattara Preview: Secret Cat Collecting and MEOW Card Counters

In Gattara, winning means collecting cats while keeping the size and makeup of your stash under wraps. This fast card game from Disometric Games builds its table talk around a useful tension: you need to gather the right cats, but revealing what you have can make you an easy target. “Gattara” is an Italian word roughly translated as “cat lady,” and here it gives competitive cat lovers a quick contest of collecting, stealing and concealment.

A hidden collection and a small hand

Each player starts with a screen and two Stray Cat tokens. The screen conceals both the kinds of cats you own and how many you’ve collected, so opponents must make choices with incomplete information. You begin with a three-card hand and use those cards to change your collection or interfere with someone else’s.

At the beginning of a turn, a player with fewer than three cards draws one from the central deck. Once the hand is full, the player chooses a card and resolves its instructions. The basic rhythm is easy to follow: replenish if needed, play a card, then see how the table changes. The choices come from deciding when to build your stash, when to disrupt another player, and what information your move gives away.

Card colors signal their broad effects. Red cards make a player lose a cat token; green cards let a player gain one. Yellow cards bring special twists, including exchanging hands, drawing a card from an opponent or passing a cat to another player. Those effects give a simple turn structure room for tactical decisions. A card that looks like a straightforward gain may matter less than protecting the tokens you already have, while an effect that moves cats between players can reshape everyone’s plans.

The tokens have three colors and values. Grey Stray Cats are worth one point, black Pedigree Cats are worth two, and white Show Cats are worth three. The goal isn’t simply to accumulate as many tokens as possible: players are trying to reach a specific number of cats determined by the number of people playing. That target gives the table a moving puzzle. You need to track visible changes and remember what you’ve learned about collections that remain hidden.

Take that cards and a sharp response

Gattara leans into direct interaction. Some cards steal cats or interfere with a player’s hand, so a growing collection can attract attention as well as bring you closer to winning. Since the screens hide the exact contents of each stash, players have to make educated guesses. Target someone for a cat they don’t actually hold, and the move can miss its mark. Paying attention to which tokens are appearing and disappearing gives memory a practical role without making the game’s core turn hard to teach.

MEOW cards add a response window to certain attacks. When a player uses one against you, you can answer with another MEOW card. The original effect is cancelled, and the effect on your response is doubled. That can turn a threatened loss into a sudden swing, but using the card also means spending a potentially powerful answer. The exchange makes timing matter: a player may need to weigh whether to save a MEOW card for a later hit or use it now to turn the current play around.

Five special cards add further ways to shift the table, including skipping turns, changing the direction of play and swapping cat collections. The preview describes the card strategies as straightforward, which fits the game’s brisk pace. The interesting choices appear in how players read one another and respond to a changing set of threats, rather than in a long chain of rules to remember.

A quick, interactive family game

The preview’s strongest case for Gattara is its combination of short turns, hidden information and lively interference. It’s described as easy to teach, with each game taking under twenty minutes. That makes it a natural fit for families looking for a fast card game, and for groups who enjoy a little bluffing alongside simple collection goals. The hidden stash adds a memory challenge: players who keep track of the tokens in play may make better choices about whom to target, while everyone still has to account for what they can’t see.

The cat illustrations give the game a light presentation, while stealing and losing tokens supply the sharper edge. That mix looks well suited to a group that enjoys playful rivalry and doesn’t mind having its plans interrupted. With quick rounds, a new game can follow soon after the last one ends.

Gattara is expected to launch on Kickstarter on October 15, 2026. This preview was based on a prototype provided for coverage; its components and rules are not final. For details on One Board Family’s preview policies, read more.

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