PAX Unplugged First Look: The Great Rat Wars
The Great Rat Wars was one of my highlights of PAX Unplugged - an asymmetric battle between denizens of New York and and the rat king and queen attempting to take over the city. The Great Rat Wars accomplishes a lot through the removal of randomness, multiple strategies for victory, and a balance that makes each game feel like a close battle.
In the Great Rat Wars, a solo player plays as the rats, headed by two of the Rat King, the Rat Queen, and the Rat Prince. The remaining players each play a number of human characters, split between tanks, support, healers, assassins, and utility. The humans win when they’ve killed both rat royalty, blown up four dumpsters, or a combination of dumpster and rat destruction. The rats win when all players have been defeated.
On the player turn, the players each choose one of their characters to act and spend up to six tokens on abilities. Three of the tokens are allocated to character-specific abilities and the other three are allocated to move, search, trade, and destruction. Figuring out the right character to act and the best combination of abilities to use with your teammates presents the biggest challenge in the game. That said, I never felt overwhelmed by my options due to some smart game design which limits you to using a character that hasn’t acted yet and a requirement that only one ability in each row can be used.
Each character also has an ultimate ability that can be used up to twice during the game. The ultimates generally felt powerful without breaking the game. There were definitely clutch moments where a well timed ultimate saved a character, reduced a rat swarm, or dealt a finishing blow on a rat royalty. The ultimates do have to be balanced with last stands which keep a character from being eliminated on a turn where their health is reduced to zero.
The rat player has a similar turn to the players, except the rat player also gets to spawn rats at each dumpster on the map and control the swarm to overwhelm characters. The rat swarm is what gives the game its balance, as the steady increase in number of rats can quickly swarm the player characters. While destroying dumpsters reduces the number of rats that spawn each turn, it also strengthens the rat generals, giving them access to stronger abilities and increasing their health pool.
Asymmetric gameplay can be hard to balance. Either you end up with the solo player feeling overpowered and unstoppable or the other players feel like a swarm that continuously beats the solo into submission. Both of these problems are most pronounced in Betrayal where the traitor sometimes gets a setup that’s impossible to win and other times is an instant victory.
The Great Rat Wars narrowly threads that needle in a way that makes each victory feel like a close thing. There is a sense of elation to finding that last piece of the bomb and trading it to the character who has just enough movement left to blow up the last dumpster It’s moments where everyone aligns on a plan and executes where things really shine.
The epically planned victories are made possible through the lack of randomness. There are no dice rolls or random chances for damage. The only randomness in the game is the searching of the dumpsters and the move cards which determine the ways your character can move around the map. This leads to games being less about the luck of the draw and more about strategizing with your team while attempting to predict how the rat player will act on their turn. Aside from movement cards, there is not a single hidden element and this makes each game feel like a fair battle where no side is suddenly blindsided by the abilities of the other.
I had a great time with the Great Rat Wars and cannot wait until a full release so I can battle with/against my friends. While a kickstarter hasn’t been announced yet, you can add your name to a mailing list if you’re interested in being notified when it drops on Bushwick’s website: https://www.blg.games/#home.
