Rats Of Wistar Review

The cute, mousey meeples from Rats of Wistar belie the weight of the game. It’s not a gateway game of action selection and worker placement, there’s a lot more going on beneath the surface here, leading to a heavier, thinkier, more competitive game than you might imagine. The luck elements in the game might lead you to house rule it or straight up not enjoy it, but if you don’t mind a bit of a gamble, Rats of Wistar is another great game from the Simone Luciani stable.

Mrs Frisby not included

When I was growing up, one of my favourite books was Mrs Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. It was the story of a family of field mice who get taken in by a group of sophisticated, intelligent rats who have access to human-like technology. I’m not going to ruin the story here (go read the book, it’s excellent), suffice to say the theme and setting for Rats of Wistar immediately made me think of that story.

In this game you play as a rat who wants to be chosen as the leader of the colony. To do this you need to explore the nearby farm in search of cheese, while you simultaneously grow your burrow, recruit more rodents to your cause, and develop funky new rat technology and inventions to help you on your way.

As soon as I put this game on the table, complete with its moving wheel of action segments, it makes me smile. I love a dry Euro as much as the next person, but it’s so refreshing to play a heavier game which isn’t about building some ancient city, or a fantasy fight for the ages. The board and cards are bright and colourful, the artwork is cute, and the whole thing feels friendly and uplifting. This sort of stuff matters. There are times you want to play a game as a mood booster, and the family-friendly pallet and art style really play into that.

The game revolves around the aforementioned wheel. It’s split into six segments, with two of the six being next to one of the three areas of the board at any one time. You plonk one of your three your chief rat meeples on one of the action spaces on the segments, then collect the associated resources and perform the action there. Things instantly get interesting because the strength of your action is equal to the number of mousey meeples you’ve deployed to that section of the board. e.g. if you have three mice in the Forest area of the board, you’ll either be able to collect three wood, or potentially dig three rooms.

Taking your chances in the rat race

There’s lots going on on your player boards, but the main thing you do there is expand your burrow. You start the game with a few spaces to house more mice, and as the game goes on you need to both dig new holes and construct new beds for the new inhabitants. Building a bedroom adds another mouse for you to deploy in order to boost your action strengths.

While all this is going on you also have an explorer meeple at the door of the farm. By using explore actions you can open doors, move around the building, unveil new mission cards in some of the rooms, and even welcome native mice back to your fancy digs. This part of the game is where opinions (in my experience) tend to get polarised. Some people like the exploration and the unknown quantity that the mission cards add to the game. Some people hate it. Personally, I like it. I’d have liked an official variant which gave you the option, but it is what it is.

I get it though. The idea that you might spend most of your game working down towards the basement mission cards that are worth the most, only to find out when you flip the card that the scoring criteria on it don’t match what you’ve been doing so far. In the same breath, however, in a four-player game, you’ll see all except one of each type of mission card. The only unknown is which room each will be in, and which two of the ten included mission cards stay in the box. The same is true of the face-down guest mice throughout the house. You might flip one only to find it doesn’t really mesh with your ideas, and that you’d have been better off just adding a new bedroom instead.

The explore action is by far the most interesting in the game. I like moving around the house. I like seeing what appears where. I like the race to the cheese in the far corner of the basement, with its precious bounty of VPs. The rest of the game is there to fuel that exploration. To give you the things you need to complete the missions, because claiming a mission means moving a piece from your player board to the card, unlocking new one-time or ongoing bonuses as you go. It’s all neatly knitted together, like a warm jumper for a naked mole rat.

Player InteRATion

I know, I’m not proud of that heading either, but we’re stuck with it now. Player interaction is a signature of Luciani’s games, and I’m pleased to say that Rats of Wistar continues that pedigree. In some of his games it’s passive interaction, like the action space blocking of Marco Polo II or Lorenzo Il Magnifico, while in some it’s much closer to flipping someone the bird a few inches from their face, like in Barrage.

Wistar has a bit of both. The action space blocking is a very strong passive play. If there are no spaces left on the Explore segment when it comes around to your turn, you better have a solid Plan B. More direct, however, are the invention cards which directly mess with the other players. Let’s suppose the scenario I just described happens – you can’t explore and you’re left back at the start of the farmhouse while the others have been off opening doors (which grant you bonuses when you collect them) scampering around the farmhouse. BAM, I play my Spy Center card, pay two wood for the privilege, and everyone with more door tokens than me loses 2 VPs. That card is also worth 4 VPs to me at the end of the game, so there’s a 6 VP swing in one quick action. Take that, mother fluffers!

Again, there are some people out there who hate direct player interaction in a Euro game. Fear not, however, as the designer himself says you can just leave those cards out of the game without affecting it noticeably, a task which is made easier by those cards being marked with a flame. That flame is the flame of anger when you screw someone over, and I love it!

I’ve heard complaints that being the first player is too powerful a starting advantage, and I can understand why someone might think that. Conversely, however, I’ve played with people who thought that being the last player was too powerful because you get the first pick of the pairs of invention cards to start the game with. Getting an early card played which grants you an additional free action once per round is powerful too. To me, it feels balanced, but I’d defer to the results of Simone’s playtesting if it’s available anywhere.

Final thoughts

Rats of Wistar looks much lighter than it is. Your first game or two feel pleasant enough, but after that, you start to grok what’s going on, and then the game really starts to fire. The importance of the free anytime actions becomes clear, as does the importance of turn order. Turn order is influenced by visiting a worker spot which is less powerful than the others, but when you know which actions will rotate to which location for the next round, you can set yourself up for some really powerful turns. You need those powerful turns because there are only five rounds before the game ends. 15 turns, that’s all you get.

It’s one of those games where having an abundance of ‘stuff’ that you don’t have a specific need for often means you could be doing something more efficiently. Moving your workers around the wheel to boost actions to wring everything out of an action feels like the way to get the most done, but I’m far from an expert. I really like the way the scoring is so visible and tempting. As you dig new spaces or build new bedrooms, the value for each successive one is n+1 compared to the last one. The bed spaces go 1, 2, 4, 7, and so on, so you constantly feel yourself pulled in multiple directions at once. If you’re like me and easily distracted, you probably won’t win, because there are so many ways to try to earn points.

My favourite things about Rats of Wistar are time and space. That sounds more scientific than it is. The game is quick to set up, quick to teach, and quick to put away. These are traits I’m beginning to appreciate more and more with each new game I play. I dearly love Voidfall for example, but in the time it takes me to set that game up I can have Wistar set up and halfway played. It’s a relatively easy game to teach too, helped in no small part by the excellent, consistent iconography throughout. Space-wise it’s great too. It’s a smaller, Alea-sized box. It doesn’t swamp your table. It all just feels compact, without appearing crowded.

I’m a bit of a Simone Luciani fanboy, I’ll admit. I haven’t played a game of his yet that I didn’t really enjoy, and Rats of Wistar joins that list. Easy to learn, plenty of depth, optional take-that interaction, quick to play – what’s not to love? Well, the exploration and random positions of the missions, sure, and if that’s a big deal to you I’d suggest looking elsewhere. It doesn’t bother me, however, which is why I really like this one.

You can buy this game from my retail partner, Kienda. Remember to sign-up for your account at kienda.co.uk/punchboard for a 5% discount on your first order of £60 or more.

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