Rat Mischief

This fast-paced game is quick and addictive! Your goal is to build your mischief of rats larger than your opponents. Collect rats by rolling dice, gaining treats, and using various items.

Rat Mischief was so named because a group of rats is actually called a mischief, and for any of you that know anything about rats, they are appropriately named! The goal of this game is to get your mischief to have eight rats before your opponents. There are various ways to earn rats, but there are also ways to lose them. The main component to the game is dice rolls. There are six sides to the dice – rat, candy, chocolate, toy, cards, and skull. To decide who goes first, all players roll all the dice. Whoever rolls the most rats goes first. In the event of a tie, the dice rolling continues until a clear winner emerges. The first way to gain a rat is by rolling enough rats on the dice; four gains you one and five gains you two. However, within three rolls, it can be difficult to roll four and five rats. That is why there are other ways to acquire them! There is also another way to gain rats by dice rolling: if you manage to roll five of a kind (except for skulls), you gain a rat! Another way is via treats. Rats LOVE treats. What are their favourite treats? Yogis! Yogis are variously flavored yogurt drops and are available in many pet stores. You gain a treat every time you either roll three candy, three chocolate, or three toys. When you have collected five treats, you can trade them in for a rat. To add a little spice to the game, there are also item cards. You are able to draw one if you roll three of the card draw symbols. There are various items: Thief (steal a treat from an opponent), Add Treat (add a treat to your hoard), Add Rat (add a rat to your mischief), Dice Change (change the outcome of one dice), Cat (remove a rat from an opponent’s mischief), and Toxoplasmosis (counteract cat). Most of you are probably scratching your head at “toxoplasmosis”. Here’s another fun fact I have added in – toxoplasmosis is a disease that rats can get that make them friendly towards cats! Otherwise the rest of the item cards are pretty self-explanatory. There are also multiple ways to lose a rat. The first is outlined above with the “cat” card but can, of course, be counteracted by the “toxoplasmosis” card. The other way is with the skull dice icons. If you are to roll three or more skulls, you lose a rat from your mischief and your turn ends. There are two basic types of rats in this game – top ear and dumbo. These relate to the placement of their ears. As you can probably guess, the top ears have their ears more on top of their head and the dumbo’s ears are more on the side of their head. Each of the colors and patterns are made to have one top ear and one dumbo variation. The colors of rats that I made are albino, black, blue (a shade of grey), brown, champaign (or cream), grey, and naked (or hairless). The designs include full color, tuxedo (colored with a white belly), and hooded (the head and spots along the back and rump are colored). Of course the albinos are white with red eyes and the naked rats are pink. There are also a couple of “husky” rats as well. There are of course more designs of rats, but I tried to keep it simple.

I hope you all enjoy this rat related game. Please be sure to check out the 5-6 player expansion for those of you that enjoy playing with more people. Also keep an eye out for more games in the near future!