Family fishing fun with Miaui!
Grab your fishing pole and hit the islands in this fun family board game by Z-Man Games and Asmodee!
Of course, in Miaui, you’re not fishermen but instead you’re fisher-cats.
After all, isn’t it well known that cats love fish?
So why not have a game about cats catching fish?
There’s a fishing festival about to happen and the skilled Miauians are vying to bring in the most valuable fish from the lagoon.
How to play Miaui
Miaui is a very simple game to learn and play. The objective in Miaui is to get the most points from catching fish over 12 rounds.
Each player gets their own colored set of 12 cat-diver cards valued from 1 to 12. The fish cards are shuffled, placed in a face down deck, and the top card is removed from play unseen. The Kiti statue is placed to the left of the youngest player, facing the lagoon.
In each round, 3 fish cards are drawn and placed face up on the 3 sea spaces in the lagoon. Each player secretly chooses a card from their hand to play and places if face down in front of them. When everyone has chosen their card, they simultaneously reveal their cards.
Starting with the deepest space and going upwards, the fish cards are distributed to the players in this manner:
- The card in the deepest space goes to the player who has played the highest value card.
- The card in the middle spaces goes to the player who played the next highest value card.
- The card in the shallow space goes to the player who played the lowest value card.
If two or more players have played the same value card, the Kiti statue determines who gets the fish card. Look at the hands of the Kiti statue to see who wins (one hand pointing down and one pointing up). The tied player who is closest to Kiti in a counterclockwise direction gets the card in either the deepest or middle space. The tied player who is closest to Kiti in a clockwise direction gets the shallow fish card.
There are 6 different types of fish cards in the game:
- Kittenfish: Point values of 1 to 5.
- Tigerfish: Point values of 6 to 9.
- Emperor Tuna: Point values of 10 to 15.
- Lantern-of-the-Sea: Point values of 1, 3, 5, and 7. When caught, the fish card placed in that space in the next round is placed face down instead. The player who caught the Lantern-of-the-Sea gets to peek at the face down card.
- Jellyfish: Point values of -10 or -15.
- Seagull: When a player takes a Seagull card, they must discard the top card of their caught fish pile. The seagull carries it away out of the game.
Players place their caught fish in a faceup pile in front of them and all players discard their played cards in their own face down discard pile. The Kiti statue moves clockwise to the next space between players and a new round begins.
The game ends after the 12th round – after all players have played their final card. Players add the value of all their captured fish cards and the player with the most points wins.
Can the whole family enjoy Miaui?
Miaui is a family game through and through. The rules are simple, the game play is quick, the artwork is colorful, and there’s a mix of strategy and luck.
There are lots of reasons why we enjoy playing Miaui.
First of all, we love the simultaneous selection of diver cards. This means that there aren’t any traditional “turns” to take. Plus, it means there isn’t any downtime to worry about. While some players may take longer to choose their card, this difference in time is very minimal and the flow of play is very quick.
The simultaneous selection also brings in a bit of light tension in trying to figure out which cards other players will play.
In some rounds there may a big disparity in point values of the fish cards available – making the choice clear which card everyone will want to catch. For example, there could be a 15 point Tuna, a -15 point Jellyfish, and a Seagull to be caught. Clearly everyone will want to snag the Tuna and stay away from the negative Jellyfish and fish-stealing Seagull. But only one person will get it.
But that luck-factor also plays into why it’s a fun game for a wide range of ages. We can have just as much fun playing with young players as with competitive adults.
Yet it’s not all about luck.
Since all players have the same set of cards at the outset of the game, paying attention to which cards people have played adds in a strategic element to the game.
Diver cards are placed face down in a discard pile once played. But if players remember which cards have been played, they’ll have a better chance at playing their cards at the right time. This obviously isn’t deep strategy, but it also means the game isn’t completely devoid of strategy.
Which bring us to another factor of the game we enjoy – the Kiti statue for deciding ties.
When choosing which card to play, players need to keep an eye on Kiti. How many spaces away from Kiti you are (and in which direction) will have an impact on which fish cards you may or may not get in a round if you play the same value card as another player.
Another thing we like about the game is that up to 6 players can play!
With a family of 6, this is always something we look for. And even though the target audience is for families with young players, we’ve had fun playing with our high school and college-age kids just as much. (Or perhaps even a bit more because our older kids like to throw in a bit of good-humored trash talking along the way.)
There are also a couple of variants described in the rulebook that players can try.
The first is open information where players place their discarded diver cards face up. Playing this way, players with better memories aren’t at an advantage. All players can see which valued card everyone else has played along the way. Thus, choices from all players each round can be a bit more strategic.
This variant also recommends fanning captured fish cards so everyone can see all fish caught rather than just the top card of player piles.
Another variant is called “No Fighting” where the game is played without the Kiti statue. If there’s a tie for a card, no one gets the card. Instead, the card is left in that space into the next round. Thus, in the next round, that space will have 2 fish cards on it now. Whoever gets that space in the next round will get both cards! (or even more cards if they keep stacking)
Overall, Miaui is a great, light family game trying to out-guess other players.
How do you pronounce Miaui?
If you’re like us, when you first see the Miaui game box, you’re not quite sure how to pronounce it. The first thing we saw in the game title is “Maui” – the beautiful Hawaiian island. But that little “I” after the “M” threw us for a loop.
That’s when we realized the cat theme was the creative twist by pronouncing it “Meow-i”.
And once we dove into the game even further, we realized the Tiki-like statue has another cat tie-in with it – being named Kiti (kitty). Nice work Z-Man Games.
How does Miaui score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?
Miaui scores well on our “let’s play again” game meter mainly because of how fast a game plays out. It’s also really easy to set up for a new game. Just shuffle all the fish cards, take all your diver cards back in hand and you’re immediately ready to play again.
Miaui is also a very compact game which makes it easy to take along with you. While the box itself is smaller than typical game boxes, it’s size that way because of the lagoon board. So if you’re really tight for space, you could simply take the diver cards and fish cards along with you in a baggie.
If you’re looking for a quick game of simultaneous play with a bit of guessing, luck, and strategy, then Miaui may be just the game for you.
