Rats to Riches: Preview

Rats to Riches: Preview

Information:

Mechanics: Take That, Set Collection, Engine Building

Player Age: 10+ 

Player Count: 2 - 5 Players 

Time to Play: 20 - 60 Minutes 

Publisher: Self Published

BGG Complexity: 1.00/5

Disclaimer: A preview copy for the game was provided by the publisher.

The Game:

Objective:

In Rats to Riches, each player begins as a pauper rat down in the sewer and the aim of the game is to be the first rat to reach riches of 100 coins.

Card Anatomy:

Cheese Cards:
These cards come in green, blue and red. Each card only counts as one cheese of the chosen colour. These are used to buy the majority of other cards in the game.

Flush Cards:
Each player begins the game with one flush card, this will give the player one income (more on this later) each turn and can be discarded during the turn to refresh all the cards from the shop (sewer).

The cards that can be purchased come in seven colours: blue, red, yellow, grey, green black and purple.

Blue Cards:
These are the penthouse pipes and are bought using the blue cheese cards. This adds the element of set collection to the game as you can sell any number of penthouse pipes (some blue cards have more than one penthouse pipe) on your turn and receive coins equal to the number of pipes squared. If you sell five pipes you will gain 25 coins.

Red Cards:
These cards are used as action cards with one time effects and are purchased with red cheese cards.

Yellow Cards:
These cards have one time effects that will activate and affect all players when drawn from the deck when refreshing the sewer.

Green Cards:
These cards are purchased using green cheese cards and will increase the amount of income a player gains on their turn. Additionally, there will be some that act as an immediate effect to gains coins once purchased.

Grey Cards:
These cards are bundles which are purchased with coins. These can be sold to gain coins when discarding the required cards displayed on the grey card (like remove three purple cards).

Black Cards:
These are immediate effect cards that will work as a field wipe for one or more players and will cost the player one coin.

Purple Cards:
These cards require one of each type of cheese to buy, and will give the player an ongoing effect.

Setup:

1. Divide the cheese cards into three piles, each representing one colour.
2. Shuffle the shiny sewer and the savage sewer. (Both have the same type of cards, the shiny sewer just has better quality cards). These are identifiable by the backs of the cards.
3. Place the savage sewer on top of the shiny cards, and place the top 3 sewer cards face up next to the sewer deck.
4. Each player receives a flush card.
5. Each player receives three coins, where each subsequent player receives one more coin I.e the second receives four coins, the third receives five, the fourth receives six coins, and so on.

How to Play:

The game is extremely easy to teach so it won't take long to discuss what a player can do on their turn.
At the start of your turn, gain the amount of coins equal to your total income (represented by the green cards and the flush card). On your turn you can do a series of actions in any order:
- Using your cheese, buy any face-up cards from the sewer. After purchasing each card, or if a yellow card does its effect, a new card is drawn to replace that taken.
- Use your flush card to refresh the sewer.
- Use any amount of red cards.
- Sell the pipes on the blue cards to gain cheese.
- Sell any bundles by discarding the appropriate cards on the purple cards.
At any point if you owe a player money, you can sell cards that you own for two coins each. Although, this can only be done if you are broke and have absolutely no ‘money’.

At the end of your turn, you can buy up to three cheese cards of any combination. Each cheese card will cost one coin. Remember, these cheese cards are used to buy other cards from the sewer.

Final Thoughts/ Who's this for?

I'm not going to sugar coat this so prepare yourself; Rats to Riches is a mean game loaded with common mechanics to enhance the take that aura of this game. So if you can't handle this kind of competitive gameplay then this may not be for you. However, saying all that, with the right group Rats to Riches is fun as there is plenty of competitive player interaction. One of the benefits Rats to Riches has over other take that games is that it does not go for a long time, especially in a two player game. If you want to screw over your friends and go from a pauper rat to a ratillionaire then this is definitely the game for you.

Changes from BETA to Final:

Due to the feedback provided by players of the BETA game such as me. Rats to Riches underwent many changes. These include balancing out the money such as:
- having the grey cards bought with cheese instead of coins. so on a turn a player couldnt by an assortment of grey cards constantly and go through multiple cards in the deck.
- The cheese cards no longer have a cost when buying at the end of a turn.
- The blue and red cards have been reworked. The blue cards are now more expensive, making the pipes harder to collect, and red cards have more beneficial effects for the player, reducing the strong take that element of the game.
With all these changes, the creators of ‘Rats to Riches’ have shown that they listened to the feedback of their users and have created a much more balanced game.

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