I’ve played this game a handful of times now (not counting the times I’ve immediately found the cat), and have been loving it as a super easy, setup-and-go game. There are times when it feels like it can turn into a slog, but then mechanics like rooms dropping away and blocking paths make it interesting again.
The last couple of games, I’ve been dealing the surrounding three cards around the starting card and then shuffling in the cat card, which has solved the problem of the game sometimes ending immediately.
I was also thinking of further modifying it by making the escape pod elsewhere in the deck, maybe keeping it face up (I’ll just close my eyes so I’m not cheating lol), so I know where it is. That makes the possibility of the starting card causing me to make noise, which might suck? But also might be interesting.
Fun game!