by Cédric MILLET

Hello, my name is Cédric Millet, and I am the game designer of Kyoto no Neko.

This was the second game I designed. The prototype was named after Nouba, the cat of my friend and fellow game designer Marc Paquien (Yamataï, Treasure Island, Loading). In French, "Nouba" is a synonym for "party", and since the game tells the story of kittens (i.e., newbie cats), I spelled it "Nooba"!

Why a game about cats? Because my first game prototype, "Thesauros" (planned for release in 2025), was a heavy Eurogame, and I couldn't get my wife to playtest it as she prefers light games with simple rules. In a desperate attempt to get her to my playtest table, I decided to design a second game that would be lighter in rules and centered around kittens! (Yes, she is an absolute cat lover.)

I got to work with the goal of having players embody kittens who would explore the world, grow, and develop their skills while doing kitten-like things! Creating mechanisms that matched the theme was also important to maximize immersion. To achieve this, I introduced a skill sheet and skill checks to determine whether the kittens' actions succeeded. Since some of my friends whine when they fail to roll good dice results (hello, Laurent & Hervé!), I created a non-punitive rule: either you succeed and benefit from the action, or you fail but improve your skill by learning from the failure. I felt this was fitting for a family game, as well as a good message (especially considering French culture, in which failure is rarely valued).

One of the first "Nooba" prototypes. Yes, the bikes were originally cars!
In my mind, the game needed cute artwork and nice animal minis! Having played Takenoko, I quickly targeted Matagot as a potential publisher for "Nooba". Once I was satisfied with my prototype, I scheduled a meeting at SPIEL and got their feedback: My game was too complicated. However, if I could simplify the design, they'd be interested in publishing it.

I also showed the game to other publishers, and the feedback I received made me question the theme. Several felt that a game about kittens could be only a children's game, not a family game. As a result, they felt the mechanisms didn't align with the theme.

As a result, I decided to pursue two directions:

1. Simplify "Nooba" to meet Matagot's request, but without turning it into a children's game. I was convinced that a cat game would appeal not only to children but to all cat lovers — and many adults are!

2. Explore a different theme to increase my chances of getting published. "Nooba" also became "SpaceNoob", a light 4X game with a few rule changes to match the new theme.

"SpaceNoob" prototype
One-and-a-half years later, I attended the French FIJ event in Cannes, met with Matagot, and was told that my changes met their expectations! Hurray! After a few more adventures, the contract was signed, and the development phase began.

The development of Kyoto no Neko benefited from the experience I gained while developing my first published game, Meeple Circus, for which I was fortunate to work with Ludovic Maublanc and learn from his approach to game development and simplification without losing the core experience.

Here are a few highlights of the design evolution and challenges I faced:

Downtime
I was a bit obsessed with reducing potential downtime between players' turns. In the first versions of the prototype, players could either move their kitten or perform an action during their turn. This led to fast-paced gameplay and some interesting dynamics: If you moved to a space with an objective, you'd have to wait until the next turn to perform the action, during which another kitten could join you and trigger a fight!

However, it felt unnatural to most players to move without taking an action in the same turn, so I realized this was a bad idea. Eventually, ending the player's turn as soon as an action was performed turned out to be the best solution.

Egyptian-themed 3D printed prototype
Component Handling
Several moments during development required solutions to minimize component handling:

1. During the Egyptian-themed version develoment, all tokens ("paws") turned into 3D components. This also required additional cards and led to way too much handling and, as a consequence, downtime. I eventually returned to cardboard tokens, and we later decided to limit the 3D elements to trees and key scenario components. The theme was also changed to contemporary Japan.

2. Initially, kitten growth was triggered by the number of spaces explored, with each space getting a time token during set-up. When a space was explored, the time token moved to an hourglass board with thresholds that triggered the kitten's growth. This mechanism was replaced by the growth track.

Hourglass board
3. Originally, the design didn't have a game board, with the spaces being represented by square cards. A board and tokens (paws) looked better and were easier to handle.

Objectives
Finding a good way to determine the winner was a challenge. Although I considered the idea of scenarios from the start, the scoring system was quite different, and it took me around six months to arrive at the final solution — which now feels so obvious and natural!

•••
After the development phase was completed, the publishing work began. Fun fact: The cat minis are the ones I used in my prototype. The final product fully meets my expectations, thanks to Jérémie Fleury's amazing artwork and Matagot's great work on components. Unboxing my pre-production copy was an incredible moment!

To conclude, this project might have brought a bit of magic into my home: I was allergic to cats when I started, but the allergy vanished during development, allowing my wife to finally get the kitten she had always dreamed of!

Our cat "Kali" helping me proofread the rulebook
I hope you will enjoy this game and that it will bring out the feelings of a kitten discovering the world!

Cédric