I'm Not Dead Yet: A Rattus Review

Rattus

• Designed by Henrik and Åse Berg
• Published by Z-Man Games
• Plays 2-4 players
• Game time is 45 minutes on the box, which actually holds true in real life.

Overview

Not to be confused with Ratatouille, the beloved Pixar film, this game features rats in the black plague timeframe.   Now, if you're skeptical of the theme, don't worry too much, the game doesn't really involve rats, just some rat tokens.  The goal of Rattus is to have the most cubes on the board at the end of the game, but this is easier said than done.   There are special power cards which help you do different things, but they are also another way to have cubes removed from the board.  Players must carefully weigh the pros and cons of holding a power, because once taken, the power is yours until someone takes it from you.

Components

The Components in Rattus are good quality.  Each player has a supply of 20 cubes in each of 4 colors - Red, Green, Yellow, Blue.  Green and Blue look rather similar in bad light, so be careful with those, but the cubes do their job.  They're small enough to fit on the board, yet big enough to move around for someone with large hands like myself.  My board suffered some warping, and still doesn't exactly lay flat, but it's not severe enough to be a problem.  The character cards are sturdy cardboard and move around easily.  The rat tokens are prone to accidental flipping, but they are sturdy disks.  There's nothing striking about the components, but they're all fully functional, easily identifiable, and aren't going to break anytime soon. A very sturdy 9/10 on the components.

Mechanics

Here's the game. Get a power if you want one. Put cubes on the board. Move the plague piece. Add new rat tokens to adjacent regions. Conduct the plague in the plague region. Next player's turn.  There's a lot that goes into each step, and there are many strategic choices, but these mechanics are not innovative.  The board set-up works well with the mechanics, and everything goes along smoothly like a well-oiled machine, but it can feel a bit like you're going through the motions.  There isn't that one time where you can do something unexpected and take a huge lead because everyone else can pretty much do the same thing.  There is some luck with what icons show up on the rat tokens, but other than that, the game is almost entirely strategic.  I give these mechanics a solid but bland 6/10.

Interaction

The interaction in Rattus is fairly direct.  You can steal a power card from any player you want, and you know who has cubes in a region when you move the plague there, so you can target a specific player or players if you really want.  You're not guaranteed to actually hurt them, but you do have the opportunity.  Interaction exists, but it's not a huge factor in the game to me, so a 5/10.

Theme

If you hadn't put the dots together to see that Rattus takes place in the middle ages, then here you go.  It's the time of the Bubonic Plague. Disease is everywhere and everyone is doing what they can to avoid it.  Kings hide in their castles, Knights divert the plague the best they can, even Witches use their "powers" to avoid the plague in their own areas.  The theme of Rattus isn't crucial to the gameplay.  It would work as something else, though I'm not sure what. As is, the theme does blend into the gameplay nicely.  The board has an old look to it, the rats are dispersed throughout the game, and things work well.  It's not an amazing theme, but it is different than many other games, so it gets a 7.5/10 for me.

Learning Curve

I give Rattus a Medium Learning Curve.  It isn't an overly complicated game, but it does take a game to see how everything works together.  You have to see the end to understand why the beginning works, and the entire game for that matter.  It also takes time to know what powers to take and which ones not to based on the state of the board.

Why I like Rattus

The theme is different, the gameplay is solid, and most games are fairly close in the final scoring.  To me, those are all things I like to see in any game.

Why I don't Like Rattus

In the base game, there aren't enough power cards to play it often.  This is fixed with the Pied Piper Expansion, but the base game of Rattus is incomplete without that expansion.

Replayability

Rattus has enough to offer for several game plays even without the expansion.  The dynamics change based on the number of players.  Adding even one new player to the mix will change the way people approach powers, and that gives it some legs.  Still, the options are limited, and the same 6 powers will be in every game.  The expansion changes this and gives 2 additional powers of each type, so you far more variety, which leads to better replayability.

Overall

Rattus is a good game.  It made my top 10, but I fear that it's losing it's shine.  I recently acquired the Africanus expansion, so that may get it to the table again, but it seems like the novelty wears off after a bit.  I still like playing the game, but it takes a group who's willing to have some fun with the theme and doesn't mind attacking each other, both directly and indirectly.  It's a solid game, but it's an 8/10 overall for me.

Amusing story

There was one game where one player decided to never take a power card.  She ended up winning the game, which strikes me as a potential flaw to the game.  Perhaps it was just the mix of powers, or that the rest of us attacked each other a bit too much, but it was a little odd to me.  It was a valid strategy that game, but she tried it again and didn't do nearly as well.

Final Thought
Sometimes a game with an odd or unique theme can turn out to be a winner, but not always.  Take your time to examine the mechanics of a game, and make sure that the theme alone isn't a turn-off for you or your game group.  

Want to buy Rattus or an expansion and support BoBG?

Top 42 Part 5 (14-8)

Welcome to the top 14.  Now that the Super Bowl is over, it's time for some game talk.
Any of these 7 games could be anywhere on this list for me, but I tried to order them in terms of what would I like to play the most if I had the right group, right play time, etc.

#14 Catacombs

Catacombs is a dungeon crawl as the name suggests, but has a huge twist.  There are no dice, no combat charts, simply flicking.  That's right, you flick your hero at the monsters, or monsters at the heroes if your the game master.  Every hero has a special ability, which is further enhanced by artifacts available for purchase at your friendly neighborhood gift shop.   This game is highly innovative in the way it takes a dungeon crawl and simplifies it with the flicking mechanic.  Sure, it's hard to remember where pieces flew off the board, or to check if that piece really did hit that other piece, but that's what cameras are for, especially if they have slow motion or frame by frame replay. (You think I'm joking, but I'm not.  We've actually gone that far.)  I enjoy playing either side in Catacombs, and while the GM has a lot more to work with, the heroes generally have a fighting chance.  Sometimes it takes too long for what it is, but I enjoy playing and having a flicking good time.

 #13 Pandemic
My thoughts on Pandemic have been fairly well expressed on this blog.  If you haven't read the review on it, go take a look.  I really enjoy the puzzle aspect of Pandemic.  Now puzzle doesn't mean that there's only one right way to win the game, but rather that each piece gives a clue as to what's next.  It's a hard co-op where the board can beat you fairly easily, yet almost every game is winnable.  It's a great challenge, and a great way to see how people think and work together.  You simply have to make good use of the player abilities, else you are doomed to fail.  At this point, I never play without the expansion for the game because the additional powers make it more interesting, the new special event cards add variety, and the different ways to play the game add new challenges.  Pandemic would be ok without the expansion, probably in the 20s for me, but with the expansion it makes #13, with potential to climb.

 #12 Dixit
When I first heard about Dixit, I was skeptical at best.  I'm not a very creative person when it comes to words, as you may realize from reading my articles, but the artwork intrigued me.  There was so much depth to the pictures, and now so much variety due to ~250 cards.  This is perhaps a better Apples to Apples because it gives players freedom, and it has a better structure for scoring points.  Dixit shot up my list because of the people I played with. It's an experience game, made amazing or meh by the people who play.  At school I had many well read friends who could pull references that I knew nothing about.  Some people may get frustrated by that aspect, but I learned things, and eventually gained a good guessing instinct for the cards.  There's a very subtle line between realization and giving away the answer to other people, because the storyteller is trying to get someone but not everyone to guess their card, but if everyone or no one gets it right, the storyteller gets no points, and everyone else scores.  Dixit is a lot of fun, and if you have a group that likes Apples to Apples or storytelling, this is definitely worth a look.

#11 Forbidden Island
Here's another game that I've talked about a lot, and you'll notice the distinction between Forbidden Island and Pandemic isn't great.  Simply put, I've played Forbidden Island more frequently as of late, and had better success teaching new players the game.  I love the artwork and the near constant tension that everything has to be taken care of, else we could lose at any moment feeling.  Seriously, the best thing I can say about this game is that unless you absolutely hate co-op games, you won't be disappointed with this as compared to the money it costs you.  At worst you'll be able to give it as a gift to someone who will like it.

#10 Incan Gold
This is an intriguing press-your-luck game.  The goal is to get more treasure from the temple in 5 rounds than your opponents.  Now, you might think all you have to do is stay longer than them, but knowing when to stop is the key to this game.  Each round, a card is turned over, revealing either treasure or a trap.  A single trap acts a warning, but a duplicate triggers the trap sending everyone away empty handed.  There are 5 different traps, so it's possible that nothing will spring until the sixth trap.  The revealed treasure is split evenly between remaining players, with leftovers going on the card. The leftovers are given away to players when they run, so knowing when to run is a key aspect.  If you stay too long you may get nothing, but if you run too soon you'll be greatly outscored by your opponents.  I've had many good times with this game.  Everyone seems to understand it, though silly mistakes will be made, it's short enough, ~20 minutes, to play more than once.

#9 Rattus
Not to be confused with Ratatouille, the beloved Pixar film, this game features rats in the black plague timeframe.   Now, if you're skeptical of the theme, don't worry too much, the game doesn't really involve rats, just some rat tokens.  The goal of Rattus is to have the most cubes on the board at the end of the game, but this is easier said than done.  On your turn you can take a power card, each one has a symbol on it which will come into play later.  Then you place cubes in one region equal to the number of rat tokens there.  Then you move the plague piece into an adjacent region, place one or two rat tokens in adjacent regions, and finally you resolve the plague by looking at the total number of cubes in the area, comparing it with the token, then causing player powers, the majority owner or all players to lose a cube.  This goes on until there are either no rat tokens left, or one player gets all 20 of their cubes on the board.  It's a fun back-and-forth amongst powers, with players taking your power sometimes.  You want the powers to do extra things, but the powers also cause you to lose more cubes, so it's a tough balance.  If you can get past the theme, Rattus is an enjoyable strategy game with some luck mixed in.

#8 Shadows Over Camelot
Shadows is one of the earlier co-op games, but it took me awhile to get around to playing it.  I personally love the theme, come on, it's Arthurian Legend.  I think the knights of the round table was the first real fantasy that I enjoyed, plus the Stargate-SG1 use of things helped keep my interest in the mythos.  Each player plays a knight of Camelot, or King Arthur.  Every knight has a special power which helps good defeat evil, but the twist to the game is that one knight may be working against the others.  It took my 45 games to finally act as the traitor, though not all of those were games where a traitor was possible.  There are multiple quests that the knights have to work on together in order to succeed.  Knights can purse the Holy Grail or Excalibur, fight the Black Knight, the Picts or Saxons, the treacherous Lancelot or the fearsome dragon.  There are a lot of things to do, and the key to Shadows is managing what you can and can't do, letting things fail, and trying to win things at the right time.  I've spent many good hours trying to figure out and then defeat the traitors to Camelot, as well as direct the knights.  I've had more fun watching seemingly innocent people (MY SISTER!) play the deepest hidden traitor act, and completely bamboozle the knights.  The one thing I've yet to see is King Arthur turn traitor, but I know it will happen eventually.

Just one more week to get through this list.
I apologize for the lack of other articles, but without a digital camera I'm kinda stuck on reviews.  I've been writing a few, but other life events also slow things down.  I'm trying to keep things going, so a big thank-you to everyone sticking with me and here's to better things ahead!