It’s a Space Race to the (Cheese) Moon
I saw this game at GAMA this past March & the graphic design & chunky pieces stood out to me. I knew I had to check it one out. Did it live up to my expectations? Scurry on…
SETUP
First off, the board is double-sided, with one side being the standard, basic setup & the other being almost completely customizable. So far, I’ve only played the standard side so that’s what I’ll review on.
After putting out the player pieces & potentially a few neutral ones (depending on player count), the next thing to do is randomly choose some of the “bottle caps” (endgame bonuses), “backpacks” (which give additional resources), and “comics” (rule breakers). There are also some “2x” tokens that are placed on the board. Create a pile of resources & that’s pretty much setup.
GAMEPLAY/OVERVIEW
The game is played clockwise, starting with the 1st player and continuing until one of two end conditions are met; 1) someone gets all 4 of their rats on the rocket ship or 2) runs out of scoring cubes (you begin with 8). The reason for this? Well, the moon is made of cheese, right? Rats love cheese, right? Need I say more? Well, just that points are good too.
On your turn, you will do the following actions, in order: 1) Move & 2) Collect Resources. There are 2 optional actions you can take at the end of your turn: 1) Build Rocket Parts/Donate Cheese to the Mission & 2) Obtain Bonus Items from the Vendors (if you are on their spots). I’ll explain these a bit more later.
Movement consists of EITHER 1) move ONE rat 1-5 spaces or 2) move multiple rats 1-3 spaces. The spaces are one of 4 different colors (Blue, Green, Orange or White) and show different resources (the white spaces are always Apple Cores & the Blues spaces are always Light Bulbs). The various resources, besides the two I just mentioned, are Muffin Boxes, Aerosol Cans, Calculators, Tin Cans & Cheese. When you land on a space, you get the number of items shown (apple cores & light bulbs are collected/received on tracks). When you move 1 rat, you can land on any space BUT if you move multiple rats, they must end up on different spaces but of the same color, again, keeping to the 1-3 spaces rule for movement. Also, if you stop on a space with another rat (you can never have multiples of your own on the same space), you must pay those rats a cheese (if there are multiple, you pay each one a cheese). If you can’t afford to pay it, you take “moldy cheese”, which will be -2 points at the end of the game and receive 3 pieces of cheese (of which you’ll pay what you owe).
Next, you’ll collect the resources of the space, if it’s a collectable item. If it’s a light bulb, you’ll move your bulb token along the string of lights that follows the trail of placement spaces. The purpose of this track is, for each space that is next to or behind where your bulb is, you’ll get +1 resource of that type each time you stop there. A great way to gather additional resources. The apple cores move a little rat on another track/burrow, on the bottom of the board. This rat always moves in a clockwise direction, burrowing underground. At certain junctions, you must decide to turn & collect a bonus or continue on around the area. The first junction holds the comics I mentioned. If you land on or pass this spot outside the comic area, you get to choose one of the comics for yourself. This will give you a rule breaking ability for the rest of the game. The next junction, should you continue to move forward & not turn, is the nursery, where you’ll gain additional rats (you start with 2 adult rats and can obtain 2 more, for a total of 4 rats). If you “hatch a rat” (as I like to call it. Yes, I know, rats aren’t hatched), you’ll add one to the starting space to await your instructions (as in movement). Next, if you pass on the nursery, you’ll come to the final option which is a score track. Passing this spot allows you to place one of your scoring cubes on the furthest left space of the track, giving you a certain number of points end game (each track has a declining score so the sooner you place on a track, the more you’ll get).
Speaking of score tracks, there are a number of these laid out across the board. You’ve got a track for donating cheese (one of the optional actions), building the different rocket parts (the thrusters, the cockpit & the control panel, again optional actions), a track for building an entire rocket (automatically gain when you build 1 of each of the 3 parts) & a track for moving your light bulb pass a certain section. Each track can hold any number of cubes & each player can have multiple cubes on each track.
Lastly, there’s a track for getting your rats on board the ship (when you’ve made it to the end of the track/placement spots, you’ll move your rat onto the track). Also, for making it to the end, you get a bonus of either “hatching a rat” or a 3-point counter for endgame.
A bit more on the optional actions. The “donate cheese” is self-explanatory. Donate 10 pieces of cheese and put a cube on the track. Build rocket parts. Each part requires a certain number of resources to build. The “boosters” for example, require 2 muffin boxes & 5 aerosol cans (we are going to the moon, after all). You can do as many of these optional donating & building actions as you can afford.
The final optional action I mentioned was obtaining goods from the various “shops” if you end your movement on their space. We have “Harry Hamster” who has the backpacks (additional resources), Zippy the Frog with the 2x tokens (turn one in to double everything you received that turn) & the Madcap Crow who has the bottlecaps (endgame bonus points). I say “obtain” because each shop displays a cost in cheese to “purchase” the items legally (6 cheese for a backpack, 7 for a 2x & 12 for a bottlecap) but we’re rats and rats would rather just steal stuff, right? It sounds wrong, I know, but there’s a good reason to do this (other than not having enough cheese to pay for it). If you steal the item, you move that rat back to the start space. “Well that sounds terrible” you’re saying right now (at least I assume you’re talking to your screen as you read that) but remember, as you move your rats along the spaces, if your light bulb is ahead of that space, you get extra resources. Aha!
You’ll continue to take turns until one of the end game conditions are met. If it’s due to someone getting all 4 of their rats onto the ship, they’ll finish their turn and continue until each player has had an equal number of turns. If it’s due to running out of scoring cubes, you’ll finish that round (equal turns), then play 1 more full round (each player has 2 extra scoring cubes that they can use if they need to score more before the game is over).
Once everyone has finished, you add up the points from the various tracks, any 3-point tokens you have, add an additional point for every 4 leftover resources you still have and the player with the most points wins.
THOUGHTS ON THE GAME
This game is cute. The theme & artwork are great. This is co-designed by the same designer that did Lorenzo il Magnifico & Grand Austria Hotel (a couple of my all-time favorites). It plays 1-5 (there’s a stack of cards for the solo game but I haven’t tried that yet) and I’ve played it at 3, 4 & 5. Each worked great, with little to no difference in the length of game. As I mentioned, I haven’t tried the customizable side (each space is mixed up & placed out and each score track can have a different point value) but I imagine it would work wonderfully. I see this being a great family game but still have some meaty choices to make. Everyone I played with was a gamer & each one enjoyed it a lot (and a few said, “I need to get this for my family. They’d love it”). The rules are simple enough and easy to understand. It’s really just move & collect resources. The variety in the comics (rule breakers) & the bottlecaps (endgame bonuses) make it interesting each game (you only use 6 of the 12 bottle caps & 6 of the 10 comics each game).
FINAL VERDICT
I’m really glad I saw this at GAMA & even happier that Pegasus Spiele sent me a review copy (they also sent me Fire and Stone, which you can read my review on). First Rat really nailed it for a light-midweight family game that works well with gamers too. The rat meeples are big & chunky. The resources are a good chip thickness (& each is shaped differently). The iconography is easy to understand & the board is colorful without being “busy”. Everything just looks & feels great. The only negative that I heard was with the included player aid. They are a larger cardboard piece that looks nice & for the most part, explains all the actions (required & optional) but really, once you’ve been told what you can do, you’ll never look at the aid again. It was kind of a waste. That’s more of a nitpick & not essential to the game anyhow. Overall, I really like this game & recommend it to anyone that likes worker placement & resource gathering styles of games.
I give this an 8.5 out of 10.
In North America, Pegasus Speile can be found online at pegasusna.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/pegasusspieleNA.
