Ratcatcher: Rapid Review
Information:
Mechanics: Action Points, Exploration, Survival
Player Age: 14+Player Count: 1 PlayerTime to Play: 30 - 45 Minutes
Game Designer and Artist: Matthew AslinPublisher: Platypus IndustriesYear Published: 2020
Player Age: 14+
Game Designer and Artist: Matthew Aslin
Rundown:
The town of Brie has discovered a new mystical type of cheese with many magical capabilities; this was deemed ‘Magic Cheese’. There are many special powers this cheese can unlock, which has sadly drawn the attention of all rats, near and far. Ratcatcher is a solo dungeon crawl that has players in pursuit of defeating the Nemesis Rat, or collecting 10 magic cheeses. The inverse is how players lose; via the Ratcatcher having no life or the rats collect 10 magic cheeses. Each round the ratcatcher will have a turn followed by the rat's turn. If there is less than two magic cheese on the map on either the ratcatcher or rat’s turn, the city will be expanded (more on this later).
Ratcatcher Turn:
On the ratcatcher's turn all the movement and attacks will be refreshed. Then they can do the following actions in any order:
- Attack the rats by rolling the dice, any value that is equal to or greater than the ratcatcher's accuracy will deal damage to a rat. To defeat a rat you have to be able to do more damage than defence value, or roll a perfect 6.
- Collect the magic cheese simply by being at its zone without any rats present.
- Lay a trap in your location or any adjacent location by spending 1-2 movement as shown on the ratcatchers trap.
- Spend a certain amount of rats from your tallyman by returning them to the spawn bag to gain various effects (as shown below). Each time a common rat is defeated/caught they will be placed in your tallyman.
- Players can also unlock special abilities in the form of either a yellow or purple potion. These can be collected and used, however, they are rarely refilled.
Rat’s Turn:
In this phase only the rats on the active township cards will activate. These activations go in the order below:
- Any trap that currently has a rat in the same zone will activate.
- Rats will now bite the ratcatcher if they are in the same zone. If the amount of successful bites (based on the rat's accuracy) is larger than the ratcatcher's defence, the ratcatcher will be bitten and lose one life. The Nemesis can land multiple successful bites, where a Peculiar Rat and a cluster of common rats can only cause one bite per turn.
- Rats will consume magic cheese in their location if their consumption value reaches five. Common rats are worth a consumption value of one, Peculiar Rats are worth three, and the Nemesis is worth five. After the magic cheese is consumed, all the white and black Rats from the magic cheese zone will return to the rat spawn bag.
- Rats will now spawn one at a time at every rat nest (shown below) and in the same location as each black rat. When the Nemesis is on the map it will also spawn rats based on its spawn attribute.
- The township will be extended if necessary and clean-up will occur by removing rats and tokens on inactive township cards and returning the trap tokens to the ratcatcher board.
Actions Unlocking:
As magic cheese is collected by the ratcatcher it will be used to upgrade the ratcatcher's potential.
For example, the amount of movement on a turn, attacks allowed, health, accuracy, or defence can all be upgraded by allocating the magic cheese. The other essential element of Magic Cheese is upgrading your ratcatcher's unique trap and unlocking potions. When upgrading potions you first unlock them, gaining three or two potions based on the type. The next time you upgrade one of these potions you get to refill the potion. These potions are fairly limited so be mindful of when to use and refill them properly.
The potions have a varied mix of reducing the efficiency of the rats or being able to attack them fiercely. After a few plays you will know which ratcatchers have the best potions and traps.
Pests (Rats):
Types:
All rats share the following four traits;
- Attack Strength: if the amount of attack strength exceeds the ratcatcher's defence, they successfully attack and one damage will go through.
- Defence: For a rat to be defeated they need to take damage equal to their defence plus one. Ie a defence of 0 needs one attack and a defence of 1 needs 2 successful attacks. These attacks have to be on the same turn.
- Target: this will determine if the rat moves towards the magic cheese or the Ratcatcher.
Common Rats:
There are three different common rats frequently pulled from the bag. The white rat who will run for the magic cheese. The black rat is a spawner that will bring an additional rat when spawned. On top of this, the black rat will act as an additional rats nest. This rat also needs two hits or a dice roll of 6 to defeat. The brown rat is a pure menace to your health and it is the only common rat who targets and damages the player. It will not disappear when the magic cheese is claimed by rats and will pursue you until one of you is defeated. This rat has two movements every turn and will bite the player as they try to move out of a shared location. All the common rat statistics are shown on the quick reference card below.
Peculiar Rats:
Peculiar Rats are mini-bosses that will spawn through Nemesis cards or tokens from freshly revealed areas. When spawned, a random card will be drawn from a deck of Peculiar Rats with different statistics and abilities to determine which Peculiar Rat will spawn.
If defeated, the Peculiar Rat will not go into the tallyman, instead it will have a special bonus shown at the bottom of the card that is activated once before being discarded.
Nemesis:
On top of unique values of the standard characteristics of the other rats, this boss rat will also have a health track and a spawn attribute that determines how many rats spawn in its location each turn. The most unique part of the Nemesis is the rat tracker and unique ability.
The rat tracker represents how the Nemesis gains strength through any rat consuming magic cheese. This is different for each Nemesis but can include summoning Perculiar Rats, enhancing stats of common rats, or enhancing their own attributes.
Intricacies of Township Cards:
Township cards are those that create your dungeon and there are a few elements that require further clarification. These aspects include expansion and activation.
Township Expansion:
If possible, when a township is expanded, cards will be drawn equal to the value on the township card that the ratcatcher is on. If able, each new township card needs to be connected to one of the pathways on the township card that the ratcatcher is on.
Active Townships:
An active township is a township card that is either where the Nemesis is, where a magic cheese is, where the Ratcatcher is, or any township adjacent to the Ratcatcher.
Determination:
- A nice challenging dungeon crawl.
- Beautifully produced.
- Traps are a big part of reducing the numbers against you.
- There are a lot of little rules to remember. The good thing about how they did this is that there are multiple useful cards reminding you of these rules and turn order.
Ratcatcher is a full dungeon crawl experience in a compact and beautifully produced package that plays in 30-45 minutes. This is a game that has you feeling pressure as soon as you start with swarms of rats scurrying their way towards you or the magic cheese. You are constantly faced with the decision of whether it's better to cleanse the swarm of rats, creating a currency in the form of the tallyman, or focusing purely on collecting magic cheese to properly prepare yourself. Each magic cheese that you let slip by (and this will happen a lot) will inevitably equip the rats with more capabilities. The fact that the Nemesis won't even enter the game before they have enough magic cheese consumed should help clarify that this is not an easy game to defeat but that is why it's good. Any progress you make is completely up to the decisions you make. This game does rely on luck with the dice rolls which may not suit some people but in my experience with this genre, all dungeon crawlers I have played are based on performing those big swings of luck and how swiftly you can recover from the enemies own luck. If you enjoy dungeon crawlers, the feeling of having to earn your victories, and solo games then I recommend Ratcatcher as a great addition to your collection.
Click...feed the addiction:
Comments
Post a Comment