Winter Rabbit: Review
Information:
Mechanics: Worker Placement, Resource Management, Semi-cooperative
Player Age: 14+ Player Count: 2 - 6 PlayersTime to Play: 60 - 120 Minutes Game Designer: William Thompson
Player Age: 14+
Introduction:
Winter Rabbit is a semi-cooperative game that has all animal factions working together to prepare for the coming winter. To be fully prepared each storehouse must be full (reach seven) and include tools, clothing and food essential to survive the coming winter.
The animal tribe with the most points at the end of the game cooperated the largest/cleverest so therefore was the winner. One animal tribe did not agree to this, the rabbit. They instead distracted the other animals and snuck numerous resources into their burrow. Even though the rabbit is selfish, if the players play effectively they can use the rabbit's slyness to help everyone prepare for winter. The game plays over four rounds and the last round will end abruptly once the fourth winter token is drawn.
Game Anatomy:
Tasks Cards:
Tasks are essential to ending the game on a positive note as each of these three storehouses must be filled for the players to win. To increase the value of these storehouses a task has to be completed. Every player plays a task each season that can be completed (numerous times) by anyone besides them. Resources are paid to move up the storehouse displayed on the card, the player performing this will gain the points on the card while the player who owns the card will gain the resource at the top of the card. 
Village Cards:
Village cards will create the players engine. They will award points when gained but will also increase the resource capacity, allowing the player to convert resources, gain abilities, and gain resources when locations produce. 
Some village cards cost conservative tokens, which are not a resource spent but, instead, is a tree that has to be removed from a location on the board. This will clog up the players personal resource spaces until they remove the tree and replant it back on the shared board.
Story Cards:
Story cards cost three resources of any type and reward the active player with three points. They come in either blue or orange. The orange story cards are instant one-time effects and the blue story card becomes the active story card (only one can be active at a time) and will have an ongoing effect for all players.
Villagers:
Villagers will be drawn from a bag and played to locations face-down throughout the game (not necessarily by the villager's owner).
Each player will have four villagers; 2 that start in the bag, one that is placed on that player's board, and one will enter the bag in the second season. There will also be a rabbit villager who will play by their own agenda in pursuit of gaining resources for their rabbit tunnel.
Setup:
Board Setup:
- Place two conservative tokens (tree side up) on each of the six production locations.
- Place a token on the starting place of each storehouse track.
- Shuffle the village and story deck then display four village cards and three-story cards.
- Based on the player chart, place villager tokens of an unused player into the villager bag.
Player Setup:
- Based on the table below, everyone gains the number of villagers.
- Place one village token on your player board and one onto the second season. The remainder goes into the village bag.
- Place your score tracker on the beginning space of the score track.
- Deal seven tasks to each player (eleven in a two-player game).
- Choose one task to play face-up for the season (two for a two-player game).
How to Play:
Each season is played until all villager tokens run out and the game has lasted four seasons. On each player's turn there is a morning, midday and evening phase.
Morning Phase (Producing Resources):
At the start of the morning phase, one villager token will be drawn from the bag and placed on the board.
Place a villager:
The villager is placed face-down on a production site. If this production location is full of face-down villagers and trees, all at this location is revealed face-up. If there are any rabbit villagers in this location, all resources generated (one for each villager here) will instantly go to the rabbit's burrow.
If there is no rabbit, each player in the game will gain one resource of this type, then players will gain additional resources of this type equal to the number of villagers they have in this location.
If any location has a face-up villager and empty spots have since become available due to the removal of clearing tokens, any new villager placed here, giving them one resource of the location type. This counts as the location producing for village card purposes, however any other face-up tokens will not receive resources now.
Instead of an empty location, a player can remove a clearing (tree) token and place it stump-side up in one of their personal baskets. This creates a new spot for a villager to be placed later.
Rabbit's Burrow:
There is a seventh location that works like a game of chicken. This location has two empty spots that cannot have a clearing token placed on them. Once these two spots are filled, the resources stored up during the seasons will be allocated off to the villagers here.
- If any rabbit town tokens are on this location, all resources will be returned to the supply and each player owes the rabbits one or two resources (depending on how many rabbit tokens are here).
- If there are two different non-rabbit villagers, those resources will be split between the villagers at the location, drafted one at a time.
Midday Phase:
On each player's turn, one midday action must be completed following the morning action. These include placing a second villager, acquiring village cards, completing tasks, and restoring the land.
Place a second villager:
By using a villager token from your personal board or a winter house village card you can place a second villager. This is just like the morning action but will be their own villager type rather than a random one from the bag.
Acquire village cards:
1-4 village cards can be purchased in the display at the bottom of the board. The display will be refilled following this action.
Complete tasks:
Any amount of any opponent's tasks can be completed by paying the correct resources one task can be completed multiple times. Each completion will award the active player points, move one space forward on the respective storehouse track, and award the task’s owner the resources shown at the top of the card.
Restore the land:
Any amount of stump conservation tokens can be restored at the cost of one resource each. These tokens will be replanted on the tree side in any location, excluding the rabbit burrow. This can cause locations to produce if the tree fills the last open spot in a location.
Evening Phase:
Each turn following the midday action, evening actions are optional. A player can either swap one resource for another or tell a story. As explained in the game anatomy; story cards cost three resources, award three points, and either have an immediate ability or become the active story with an ongoing ability.
These are displayed on the side of the board and are a great way to score points when close to the end of game, as any three resources can be used to purchase.
Seasons:
A season will end after the turn in which the last villager is played. As part of the new season setup:
- All villager and story cards available for purchase will be discarded and refreshed.
- The rabbit will move up the season tracker adding either one more village token for each player (second season), one more rabbit villager (third season), or frost tokens (last season).
- Each player will select one task to play for the round, two in a two-player game. Players do not re-draw for played tasks so it is important to plan as a group for the three storehouse tracks.
Frost tokens act as a timer that will end the game. Each time a frost token is drawn from the bag it is put to the side and a new token is drawn. After the fourth frost token is drawn the game ends immediately.
Final Thoughts:
- Tricky resource puzzle
- Communal board when placing villagers and moving conservative tokens.
- Fully playable in only Cherokee language.
- Great art.
Winter Rabbit is a game I quite enjoyed and it is one that does semi co-op correctly. Players have to work together to be able to complete the storehouse tracks. This is done by carefully placing villagers to help your fellow animals complete tasks. The interesting element is that points are still key in this game, as the player with the most points at the end will ultimately be the winner. These points are gained slowly through villager and story cards but the main way to gain points is by completing tasks. Both gaining points and progressing the storehouses are done through the clever use of this villager system. Placing the right villagers at the right locations ensures your opponents gain enough resources to help the common good but not enough to run away in the lead. The other core element to the game is the conservation tokens. These are an engaging system on its surface to gain what you want, like a better engine or a better resource payout, but they slowly clog up your resource holding capacity. Done right, these tokens benefit the player as well when they are returned to the board, making certain resources payout at a desired speed. This is a unique game with a great theme. I'll be awarding it a Silver Seal and am intrigued to play it much more especially at varying player counts.
Comments
Post a Comment