WhaDiYoB? - First Rat (2022)

 🕑 6 min read

Welcome to the first 'What Did You Bring?' segment. 

For the purposes of this (review) post, player names have been changed to protect the innocent and the furry.

Legend has it that the mesmerising yellow moon which hangs in the night sky above the junkyard is actually made from cheese! Many a rat child has dreamed of making their heroic journey and staking a claim to the heavenly globe of gouda. Then when all had given up on reaching it, a fellow junkyard rat scavenged an ancient manuscript amongst the discarded rubbish. A comic book! Not just any old comic though, no. This book illuminated the very first moon landing in full and precious detail. 

Ever since then the race was on to train 'rattronauts' and build a rocket ship capable of reaching the moon. One small step for rat, one tantalising leap for rat-kind. 

This delightful backstory sets you off on a board gaming experience which is likely to have you constantly grinning, and hatching new plans as the game readily shifts gears and powers towards a manic race - to become First Rat. 

On game night we played with 4 players which (after playing a few games myself) seemed to be a nice sweet spot. However, First Rat will play well with 1-5 players. 

Each player starts with 2 colour matched 'rattronaut' playing pieces, and the simple instruction to move your rat pack up a pile of junk towards victory. During your journey you will be collecting resources like baking soda and vinegar (rocket fuel); or calculators and tin cans (components), then spending them to construct your rocket ships which will ultimately catapult you to the cheesy moon. At the heart of this very easy to learn game, is the synchronisation and efficiency of your rat movements. Plus, as you gradually ready your rockets for launching, many other opportunities will present themselves to generate special rewards and essential bonus powers to help you to first place. For example; 'light bulbs' will light your way forward, score victory points, and allow you to pick up additional resources in well lit areas. Also you can collect 'mini cheeses' which are in-game currency that allow you to purchase additional powers at shops and help you share in the wealth of the scrapyard with your opponents. Finally you can scavenge 'apple cores' which move your burrowing rat around at speed, collecting unique powers, unlocking more rats to send into space and scoring valuable victory points. 

First Rat is turn based and your turn comprises of a very simple choice. Firstly, do you move one of your rats up to 5 spaces OR do you move any number of your rats up to 3 spaces each. If you move one rat, then you simply collect the resource that you land on. If you move more than 1 rat, then you may collect all the resources upon which they land - so long as your rat pack land on spaces of an identical colour! This little rule confronts you with a delicious, thought provoking riddle each turn, where you must weigh up the need to slowly increase the quantity of the resources you scavenge, with where to position yourself in readiness for that killer move next turn. Simple, yet incredibly fun. 

The game feels like you have a multitude of possibilities to follow through on to outwit your junkyardian opponents, and you never really feel 'out' of the space race either. There is always something to look forward to, manipulate, and help you onwards towards your final destination. 

You can win in only one way - be the player with the highest victory points at the end of the game. However, you are confronted and teased with many ways to earn those points. Ideally, being the First Rat to each victory point condition is the tried and tested route to success. Ending the game is also simple; the game ends when one player has placed the last of their (8) scoring cubes at victory point locations dotted all over the game board OR when one player has sent all 4 of their rattronauts into space! 

In our game, everyone seemed to enjoy the experience and ultimately the player who eventually won, was definitely 'First Rat' to several high scoring victory point locations.

All in all, if you enjoy a fun, fast paced, easy to learn game with medium complexity, then you MUST give First Rat a go if you are able to. With 4 players who are paying attention, plus a bit of chilling at the same time, expect to spend about 2 hours (including the rules explanation). 

There is a lot of replay-ability in this game through optional rule sets and bespoke (reverse the board) setups. However, I don't see any need for them right now, as the actual game reacts well to different players and their quirky strategies.

If you want to know more about this game then you can find Board Game Geek link here!

I love this game and hope to show it to more players in the future. 

 

Archeos society: Polishing a rough diamond?

 

 

Ethnos was a weird little game. Published by CMON, they of the hugely expensive Kickstarter games with glossy production values, lots of theme, even more minis that have grown over time to be anything but ‘mini’. By contrast Ethnos had a clumsily pasted on theme, some truly appalling graphic design, but it was well-regarded mechanically.

It’s been out of print for a while, and rather than a reprint, designer Paolo Mori refreshed the design/theme and it’s been published by ‘Space Cowboys’, not CMON.

 

Archeos society is now no longer generic fantasy, but instead a slightly more thematic concept of gathering different specialist explorers to go on expeditions to 6 different locations (represented by 6 different scoring tracks). This is the major change to Ethnos, which has a bland central map in which the players sought to get additional points from getting area majority in the map locations.

 

Mechanically it is extremely similar to Ethnos. On your turn you either:

-         - Choose a card from those on display / off the top of the deck (but now getting to draw 2 off the top if no cards are on display) 

       OR

-         - Play a set from your hand, either of the same colour, or same role (Botanist, physician, student etc.), with the card you choose to place on top dictating the ‘leader’ and hence which of the 6 coloured tracks you get to advance on, plus the special rule-breaking ability of your leader. The game’s lovely twist is that the remaining cards in your hand must be placed face up into the display area, sparking something of a feeding frenzy on following turns as players scoop up one of these cards that fits their hand.

Larger sets score more points, but conversely getting lots of sets played will move you up the scoring tracks quicker. Classic points salad choice for players to choose their own approach.

There’s still the same lovely ‘push your luck’ end of round timer, with the drawing of the  3^rd of 3 special cards triggering an instant finish to the round (and muttering/cursing that happening).

 There is some board interaction on the advanced side, but we didn't play that as most of our players hadn't played this game before, nor Ethnos, so we trusted in KISS (Keep it simple stupid). Conversely Ethnos had greater interaction as players jockeyed for the higher scoring regions, but wasn’t as combative as it might appear.

The new Archeos society boards are mechanically a little bit a 'much of a muchness' on their basic side, with slightly different points scoring (at end of each round). Each has a # of cards in the set requirement to progress, which generally gets larger. Of note were the pilot, allowing you to choose which board you progress on (subject to the minimum set size requirement), plus the red track which rewards players with increasing amount of cards to draw off the top of the deck... which in one round very much rushed the end.

 

So, that flimsy theme and poor graphic design have been resolved? Yes, but only to a degree.

- The text of the cards in Ethnos has been replaced by symbols. Whilst these are good / understandable, it does take half a round until people have really embedded what each one does.

- The text on the central tracks could be more visible, especially as this plays up to 6 and invariably Ethnos was a game that got pulled out for higher player counts and I expect the same of this game.

- There’s an odd choice of player colours, with white, black, grey and then three shades of brown. The different wooden shapes are a help, but not especially obvious what each represents. Nonetheless that’s a big help for colour-blindness accessibility.

- Dual layer boards for the tracks would have been helpful, albeit a simple block for each column, rather than anything more fancy. It is somewhat easy to knock the pieces as it is.

- Flimsy score track. The thinnest of card, maybe 200gsm or less, so little more than paper-thin. This is absolutely something I would laminate.

- (Bleeding) Student cards. They made a mistake on the student cards, printing right to the very edge, unlike the other cards. That is noticeable if you look for it... but even despite knowing this, at no point did I notice that during the game, either in the draw pile or players hands. On that basis I'd happily live with this issue, but others may find that very problematic.

 

Additional thoughts: It plays very similarly to Ethnos, but doesn't forcibly push players towards one colour or another, based on the random rewards of Ethnos. It also seemed to encourage players to get more small sets out in round 1 in order to progress up the tracks (perhaps because the set scoring again was quite small and on the scoring track which was placed off to one side, as it’s not in constant use. I think a player aid would have really helped (for this and the symbols).

 

Overall: I liked Ethnos, but didn't care much for the theme or the graphic design. The new game an improvement on both counts for me, but the new theme is still somewhat flimsy, and the board readability is an annoyance. The new tracks feel rather themeless as well, even when compared to the themeless central board of the original.

For me, overall it's slightly better, and I'll probably buy a copy. Mechanically it remains a super game, fast playing, easy to teach and with some nice twists, plus it plays up to 6, which I value for a game that plays fast, but isn't a party game.

 

Archeos Society, not to be confused with Archaos, the utterly crazy, yet brilliant French circus troupe. It also lacks the excitement of chainsaw juggling.

The only slightly evil 6x6x6 quiz

A little light entertainment for the festive break. Answers will be posted on NOBOG facebook page (behind a spoiler screen)  

Round 1. Anagrams – There’s a board game in there, what is it?

Let's start things off relatively easy. All these are board games, some older, some modern (and of the modern ones. all have been played at NOBOG)

1. Nice damp
2. Cooler tot  
3. Pork watch
4. Tito Deck rite
5. Dirty PC
6. Toe or pain

Round 2. Cult of the old – match these dates to the games that were first published in that year

Perhaps a little harder, but easy to have a guess if you don't know

1. 1983
2. 1993
3. 2001
4. 2004
5. 2007
6. 2011

.    

1. Castles of Burgundy
2. Cockroach Poker
3. Escape Rooms (i.e. the date of the 1^st physical escape room)
4. Jenga
5. Magic the Gathering collectable card game
6. Munchkin

Reverse quiz - Here’s the answer, but what is the question?

Now here's the truly evil round, and it covers wider than just board games, extending to cards and hobbies/puzzles. No sneaky use of internet to look these up! It's much more fun to try and work them out. Get more than a couple without cheating and that's impressive.

1. Alison Hansel
2. $12,969,608 
3. 24 Wensum St, 16 Charing Cross, 41 St Andrews St, 17 Tombland
4. 43 252 003 274 489 856 000
5. John Peake, Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson
6. Cinema City (or Suckling House as it was known at the time)