3-6 👥 30 minutes ⌛
Designed by Jaela Horton
Published by Lunarpunk Games
semi-cooperative
Rat King
A Rat King is a real, rare, and fatal phenomenon where rats become tangled together by their tails. In this game, you are rats racing to gain weight to become the biggest rat and rule them all, gaining the title of the mighty King* of Rats!
But be alert;the greedy and selfish choices that carry you toward victory may pull everyone towards doom instead.
* Girl and non-binary rats make excellent kings too. They just didn’t have the foresight to call it a Rat Regent instead.
How do you play?
Cheesed to meet you. In Rat King, players are rats, scavenging cheese from different locations like parks and kitchens with the goal of becoming the fattest rat — because what else says ‘King’ than becoming the biggest rat around?
Each location is represented by a card, and each round players will play 1 of these cards face down and then reveal simultaneously.
Go to a location no one else goes to and you get the cheese all to yourself and gain a bunch of weight! But if multiple rats go to the same spot, not only do they have to split the cheese among themselves, slowing down the weight gained, but the they also become stuck together by a tangle.
Players can choose to Slip Free from a tangle instead of going to a location later on, but sometimes there's power in numbers! If a big, hefty rat is in the lead, it might be worth tangling with them and forcing them to share victory with you! Multiple players can tangle together and there can be multiple tangles happening. Though, if all players ever tangle together, they get stuck forming a fatal Rat King forever and no one gets to wear the crown!
behind the game . . .
Published by Lunarpunk.games
Rulebook Editing by Matthew Hocker
Rat & Graphic Design by Xoe Allred
Playtested at Break My Game & Protospiel Online
Meet the Designer, Jaela Horton!
Jaela is a game designer squeaking it up in Massachusetts. She enjoys creating games that draw players into its worlds, encourage players to bend their usual social behaviors, and invite players to become someone (or something) a little out of the ordinary. When she isn’t designing games, she’s editing short videos or entertaining her cats, Spade and Salem.
more midnight market games . . .
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