Review: First Rat (Pegasus Spiele)

Everybody knows the moon is made of cheese — and for the comic book-reading rats of the local junkyard, it’s an article of faith. So when a bunch of those enterprising rats set their sights flying to an interplanetary cheese supply, the race is on to see who gets there first!

That’s the story behind First Rat from Pegasus Spiele. Armed with ingenuity, an array of junkyard trash ranging from baking soda and vinegar bottles to bottle caps and energy drinks, each rat team races to get their rattronauts to the moon.

We’re T-minus 30 minutes until launch, so strap yourself in and keep a chunk of cheese handy. Let’s explore the top five things you need to know about First Rat.

A Trip around the Board

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When you see the First Rat game board, it’ll probably remind you of a junkyard: there’s stuff everywhere, and none of it seems to be organized very well. But after a closer look, you begin to see the logic and understand how it works.

The board has three primary areas: the rat burrow, the junkyard, and the launchpad. The burrow sits at the bottom of the board. It holds the comic book library, the rat nursery, and food storage.

The junkyard fills most of the board. It includes the main movement path, shortcuts that get you to the top quicker, and three booths where you can buy helpful items. Finally, the launchpad at the top of board holds most of the scoring trackers for building your rocket, donating cheese, and such.

Moving Through the Junkyard

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At its heart, First Rat is a race to get your four rats from the starting point to the launchpad. You score points along the way and boost your abilities by gathering building materials, food and other supplies.

The game’s movement system is very clever. On your turn, you get a simple choice: you can move a single rat up to five spaces or all of your rats up to three spaces. Your rats always move forward on the board (unless you steal something from a booth; more about that later).

If you move just one rat, you can place it on any colored space and get the resources on it. If you move all of your rats, they must go to different spaces that have the same color (green, yellow, white, orange, or blue).

Getting the Goods

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Each colored space on the board gives your rats some resources.

Yellow spaces have cheese, the game’s currency. Use it during movement, to buy items in the booths, and to score victory points. Green and orange spaces have supplies to build your rocket. White spaces have apple cores, which let you move your rat burrow marker to get more of your rats onto the board, get special abilities from comic books, or score points on the stored food track.

Finally, blue spaces move your light string marker along the track that runs parallel to the resource spaces. Light helps your rats gather things from the junkyard. When your rat moves to a space either behind or next to your light string marker, you collect one extra resource from that space because you can see better.

Getting Special Abilities

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Your rats get new abilities from goods in the booths and by reading comic books in the burrow. Backpacks help you gather extra resources, while energy drinks double the amount of stuff you gather in a turn. Bottle caps score you extra victory points at the end of the game.

If one of your rats ends its move on the space next to a booth, you can spend cheese to buy an item of your choice there. You can also steal an item instead of paying for it. If you steal, move that rat back to the starting space on the board. (That’s the one exception to the rule that rats always move forward.)

Comic books give your rats all kinds of special abilities, from using shortcuts for free to making rocket parts with fewer resources. Our favorites are the comics that turn one of your rats into a super rat with extra speed, more strength, or another ability.

More Ways to Play

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First Rat uses a double-sided game board to give you extra challenges and replayability. Once you master the pre-printed board, flip it over and make a new semi-random board layout. Randomize the path tiles and scoring track tiles, then follow the placement instructions.

There’s also a solo mode where you play against Greg the Robo-Rat. Greg makes choices based a deck of cards you build for him at the beginning of the game. You can adjust Greg’s skill level by changing the mix of cards in his deck.

Verdict

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From the theme to the game play to the artwork, there’s a lot to love about First Rat. It puts a delightful new spin on the classic “follow the path” game design with the way it lets players choose how their rats move each round.

The game puts player choices front and center by the way everything interacts. Do you use apple cores to get more rats or new abilities? Or should you move the light string to boost your gathering abilities? Those choices play out differently in every game — and even more differently thanks to the double-sided board, variable tiles, and solo play options.

We think you’ll love the game as much as we do. Recommended!