Rattus

[dyeyk2000]

Europe, 1347. A disaster is about to strike. The Black Death reaches Europe, and during the next 4-5 years, the population of Europe will be halved.
The players settle in the various regions of Europe, while the plague spreads throughout all of the continent. The players gain help from the various classes of the middle ages: The Peasants provide population growth, the wise Monks keep the rats away, the rich Merchants flee when the plague approaches, the warfare conducted by the Knights spreads the plague to new areas, the Witches controls the spread through magic and witchcraft, whereas the Kings avoid the plague by staying in their fortified palaces. But the plague does not make any distinction: When the rats arrive, no one can feel safe.
When the plague withdraws and the game ends, the player with the highest surviving population wins.

Rattus ia a medium-strategy game which handles in the Dark Ages during the black plague. The players try to hold the disease.
To do this they get help from farmers, magicians, knights, nobles, ... But nothing helps as long as the rats keep coming.

[dyeyk2000]

I just saw Tom Vasel's review for this and I was immediately struck by how the gameplay almost seemed like Dominant Species Lite. Which is of course a good thing! Specially for people who don't have the 3 hours to spend on DS.

For everybody's benefit, the goal of the game is to have the most cubes on the board by game end. The plague spreads around the board in a DS Glacier like fashion. The plague is represented by rat tokens and every turn, one of these token are turned over revealing which person loses a cube in that area. It can either be by majority or by role, etc.

Speaking of the role, the meat of the game is the different roles you can take on any turn. The roles allow you to manipulate the board or the pieces on it in certain ways that can be advantageous to you. The catch? Some rat token effects specifically target certain roles. The roles can be selected from several available (if you got the expansion).

Best part: Playable in 45min. Ayos!

So I'm obviously impressed by what little I've seen of the game. I wonder how it plays. It's got shades of Dominant Species, Citadels, Pandemic, Small World, El Grande etc. Best to see for yourself na lang! I just might get this.

http://boardgamegeek.com/video/6316/rattus/dice-tower-reviews-rattus
http://boardgamegeek.com/video/6315/rattus-pied-piper/dice-tower-reviews-rattus-pied-piper

[dyeyk2000]

Aha! This also finally hit the table as well after I got a copy from Singapore. This is one of the games wherein the strategy and the way the game would unfold wasn't immediately clear to me and I mean that in a good way.

To put it simply, this is a game of survival and while there are plenty of randomness in terms of rats being activated on lands where your cube are on, there will be plenty of opportunities to manage this randomness to your advantage. And it won't be just a kill fest the whole game, for as the board develops, there will be pockets of safe zones that will materialize wherein it would be very difficult to get rats to activate there. Thus it is up to you to be there in those areas as safe zones develop subtly. I say subtly for if you make it too obvious, your opponents will most certainly catch on and ensure you get bashed. Bashed really bad. REALLY BAD (See: Spain Massacre).

So overall I thought it was a good quick game with plenty of interaction and mind reading as you're never quite sure what you're opponent is up to until they select the roles they'll be using that round and execute it. Excited to give this another go! (And with a myriad of characters cards available in the expansion, I am hoping it will continue to be fresh for a long time.)

[Talismanic (Mark)]

Aha! This also finally hit the table as well after I got a copy from Singapore. This is one of the games wherein the strategy and the way the game would unfold wasn't immediately clear to me and I mean that in a good way.

To put it simply, this is a game of survival and while there are plenty of randomness in terms of rats being activated on lands where your cube are on, there will be plenty of opportunities to manage this randomness to your advantage. And it won't be just a kill fest the whole game, for as the board develops, there will be pockets of safe zones that will materialize wherein it would be very difficult to get rats to activate there. Thus it is up to you to be there in those areas as safe zones develop subtly. I say subtly for if you make it too obvious, your opponents will most certainly catch on and ensure you get bashed. Bashed really bad. REALLY BAD (See: Spain Massacre).

So overall I thought it was a good quick game with plenty of interaction and mind reading as you're never quite sure what you're opponent is up to until they select the roles they'll be using that round and execute it. Excited to give this another go! (And with a myriad of characters cards available in the expansion, I am hoping it will continue to be fresh for a long time.)

A very righteous (Rattus!) review. Players have to keep in mind that safety is relative as the other players are likely to coordinate the destruction of you safe zone if it has a large population.