Renowned designer Dani Garcia, who burst onto the board game scene in 2023 with complex, two-hour-plus titles such as Barcelona, Windmill Valley, and Daitoshi, introduces his latest creation: Neko Syndicate. This new game stands as Garcia's lightest design to date, yet it successfully encapsulates a significant portion of the intricate "big-box" energy characteristic of his previous works within a more compact and streamlined format. Neko Syndicate offers a quick-playing experience that still delivers the satisfying strategic depth of engine-building and tableau-building, making it accessible while retaining engaging mechanics.

In Neko Syndicate, players immerse themselves in the clandestine world of sushi-smuggling cats. The primary objective is to construct a personal "city" comprising ten cards, arranged in a distinctive pyramid shape with rows of 1, 2, 3, and 4 cards from top to bottom. Each individual city card is rich with features, displaying two distinct neighborhoods, two actions located in its lower corners, and specific sushi orders at the top. The game unfolds over 15 rounds, during which players strategically play cards to their personal tableaux and navigate their cat meeple through their evolving city.

Gameplay revolves around moving the cat meeple from the top of the city downwards, invoking one action per card encountered. These actions are crucial for managing sushi cubes: players can transfer sushi from their personal warehouse into a neighborhood within their city, deliver sushi across various cards one neighborhood at a time, or utilize an efficient subway system for broader deliveries. Additionally, players can collect new cards to further expand and optimize their city tableau. A key strategic element is the scaling power of actions; actions located on cards in lower rows of the tableau become significantly more potent. For instance, an action on a card in the fourth (bottom-most) row can be utilized four times, allowing for multiple sushi cube movements or transfers from the warehouse in a single activation.

Every player begins Neko Syndicate with a unique Boss card, which establishes the very first row of their city. This Boss card features a distinct sushi order and provides two standard actions: either draw three new city cards and discard two, or add a new city card directly to their tableau. On each turn, players initiate their cat meeple's journey from this Boss card, executing one of its two actions. Subsequently, they move their meeple either to the left or right to an adjacent card in the next row (assuming a card has been played there), activating one of its actions, and continuing this process until the meeple reaches the bottom row of their developed city.

Mastery in Neko Syndicate largely depends on judicious card selection and strategic placement within the tableau. Players must ensure a sufficient variety of actions are available across their city and, critically, design meeple paths that are both logical and maximize potential actions on each turn. For example, it is strategically disadvantageous to position a delivery action where the meeple is likely to arrive at that card with no undelivered sushi cubes present, as such an action would yield no value in that specific situation. This intricate balance of card management, action optimization, and path planning forms the core of Neko Syndicate's engaging strategic depth.