Hello Gaming Library Family!
Sometimes we all just need a bit of mindlessness.
How often are we on our phones, or on a computer, doom-scrolling through post after post on social media, with idea after idea vying for our attention spans ‘til our trains of thought are derailed entirely? Bad enough that our attention spans have been shortened because of this, we’re also left to carry the mental burden of being overstimulated by the content we just consumed.
It can be overwhelming. And sometimes the answer is just to do something that doesn’t require as much thought process; in order to give our brains rest.
…Anyway, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza arguably could give our brains that rest, but rest assured it’s pretty mindless and extremely fun!
Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza is both a delicious mouthful as well as a simple fast-paced card game. A spiritual successor to Slap Jack, which would be played with your standard deck of cards, Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza has players taking turns placing cards from their hands face up in a community pile while consecutively declaring ‘taco,’ ‘cat,’ ‘goat,’ ‘cheese,’ and ‘pizza’ in that exact sequence. Once the cards align with the players’ declaration, BAM! All players slap their hands on the community pile, with the last player to do so picking up all the cards in the pile. The first person to get rid of all the cards in their hand wins!
Additionally, special action cards include the gorilla, narwhal, groundhog, and the brand new Tarsier card! When played, players make gestures specific to these action cards before racing to slap the community pile: beat your chest for the gorilla, make a horn for the narwhal, dig the table for the groundhog, and make the ‘three-goggles’ gesture over your eyes for the tarsier, which is exclusive to the new PH edition!
“Blue Orange Games is the first publisher that ever believed in Gaming Library and the Philippine market in general from the board game industry. As a partner they have painstakingly invested together with us in growing the community in the Philippines. Taco Cat is certainly a huge success everywhere in the world and in the Philippines it has become a gateway party and travel game at the same time. We're proud to be the exclusive partner of Blue Orange in the Philippines.” - Hans Kenner Fernandez, Gaming Library CEO
Another gorgeous element of the game is the simplistic yet adorable art. Reminiscent of children’s drawings, each character in the deck–the taco, cat, goat, cheese, pizza, gorilla, narwhal, groundhog, and tarsier–is rendered in soft pastel colors. Our theory is that cuteness is a decidedly subversive element of the game’s visual language: Jodey Tyley and Victoria Woollaston write for Daily Mail that there’s actually a science behind cuteness. “When we see something we find cute, it stimulates an area in our mid-brains known as the mesocorticolimbic system; the part of the brain associated with the processes of motivation.“ They expound, “Our brains commit that rewarding feeling to memory, letting us know to do it again, and the emotional response triggered by the cuteness also stimulates the motivation to care for the animal.
“We are very happy and proud to have worked with Blue Orange Games to come up with a new card that is uniquely Filipino. I remember the day we pitched this new card to Blue Orange, and we showed them the Tarsier, they said it was super cute. Then we also worked on the Taco Cat shirt, and everyone in the team was super excited about it.” - Duane Galang, Gaming Library Brand Manager
This reaction is so ingrained in our brains that it can be triggered by other things, such as a cute insect, or even inanimate objects with certain features that trigger our 'cute' response.” This science coupled with the game’s decidedly cute, pastel aesthetic belies the very physical, almost fight-oriented chaos of Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza.
In the case of this game, cuteness can hurt. But that’s part of the inherent fun! Straightforward as the gameplay is, it kept us on our toes. When I played this game with a group of friends, one friend had acrylic nails. It was a blast, but with the added anger of having lost a nail - she won! She lost two nails, each flew like a catapult. Hesitation is as much an enemy as overeagerness, seeing as slapping the community pile at the incorrect time means taking all the cards for yourself and delaying your chance to win. You’re bound to laugh with every round of the session, and even more likely to walk away with a slightly red hand. But it’s overall a great family-friendly game that can make for some really mindless, if potentially cross-generational fun.
Will you–and your hands–survive a grueling game of Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza?
If you think you can, head over to our new All aBOARD XP branch in SM North EDSA The Block! And make sure to grab your copy of Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza PH Edition in stores or online at www.gaminglib.com!
About Gaming Library
Gaming Library aims to be the go-to resource for board games, providing not only titles that can be enjoyed by families, but also to be enjoyed by friends both newcomers and veterans alike. By pulling from different resources from all over the world, we at Gaming Library curate an impressive collection of games for consumers to choose from, suitable for anybody from casual players to hardcore hobbyists. In doing so, we hope to provide the best means to foster activities that strengthen family ties and friendships, while teaching relevant skills and practical critical thinking that can be applied to your everyday life.
