Rat a Tat Cat

If you are looking for activities to do with the kids over the holidays look no further than Gameright. The company makes card games that kids really love like Rat-A-Tat Cat. Rat-a-Tat Cat is a classic 1995 family/children’s memory game that is very simple to learn and play. The objective of the game is to try to get the lowest score before the round ends.

Select a dealer and a score keeper. The dealer shuffles the deck and deals four cards to each player face down. The remaining cards in the deck are placed face down in the center of the table to create the draw pile.

Turn over the top card of the draw pile and place it next to the draw pile,. This is your discard pile. If the card is a “Power” card, return it to the deck, shuffle, and flip another card.

Without looking at your cards, each player places their cards in a line in front of them, face down. To begin the round, each player peeks at their two outer cards and tries to remember them. You then turn them face down. If either of the outer cards are power cards, the player keeps them but they won’t get to use their powers.

The player to left of the dealer begins the round. On your turn, take either the top card in the draw pile or the top card in the discard pile. Put it in your hand, then discard one card. You should always end your turn with five cards. Since you want the sum of your cards to be as high as possible, keep cards with high numbers, and discard low numbers.

The “peek” power card allows you to peek at any one of your own cards. A swap card allows you to swap one of your cards with another players card.

When you think you’ve got the lowest cards, you knock on the table and say, “Rat a Tat Cat.” Everyone gets one more turn and then flips the cards over and adds their score. Any “Power” cards must be replaced by drawing a card from the draw pile and exchanging the “Power” card with the drawn card.

The player with the lowest number of points wins. It sounds a lot more complicated than it is. Overall this is a fun game for kids 6 and up and game play goes by very quickly. Even adults will enjoy Rat-a-tat Cat.

As children play Rat-a-tat Cat, they develop a sense of timing and an understanding of basic, but essential, mathematical concepts. They learn ways to remember their cards and strategies to figure out what cards other players might have.

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