First Rat entered our lives last summer during an impromptu visit to our friend’s neighborhood FLGS, Rainy Day Games. You can’t look at the hilarious box cover of First Rat and walk away without buying it–you just can’t.
I love the idea of this game. It’s no secret that we at Board Game Matrix are suckers for animals, even – or maybe especially – anthropomorphic animals. But anyone with a sense of fun will probably appreciate the concept of junkyard rats building rockets to the cheese moon out of old calculators and aerosol cans. Even cranky, cynical hipsters will love this game, because you get to make stuff out of trash!
Read our review below the game details to see if this game might be a good match for you.
| Player Count | 1-5 | Age Range | 10 and up |
| Time to Play | ~30-75 minutes (official) ~45-110 minutes (IRL) | Setup Time | ~10 minutes |
| Mechanics | Engine Building, Racing, Worker Placement, Point Tracks, Point to Point Movement, Set Collection | Vibe | Playful, humorous, fun, competitive |
| Designer/ Developer | Gabriele Ausiello, Virginio Gigli | Publisher | Pegasus Spiele |
| Illustrator | Dennis Lohausen | Graphic Designer | Dennis Lohausen |
| Table Space Needed | ~32” x 32” | # of Cats Fit in Box Lid | 1 Long Cat |
| Component/ Production Quality | Medium | Rule Book Quality | High |
| Box Quality | Medium | Storage Design | Low |
| Theme Quality | High | Graphic Design Quality | Medium |
| Interactivity Level | Medium | Hostility Factor | Medium |
| Complexity/ Strategy | Medium | Replayability | Medium |
| Originality | 7.5 | BGM Rating/ Recommendation | 7.5/ Recommended |
Game Objective
Race your opponents to build rockets to the cheese moon and launch your rattronauts into space.
Win Condition
Earn the most points from being early to make rocket parts and rockets, launch rattronauts into space, advance on the light track and the burrow track, collect cheese, and collect bonuses and tokens.
Playing and Fun Factor
The art and the game do not take themselves seriously AT ALL, which would have you thinking that the game is too light or maybe for kids. But it’s reasonably thinky and mechanically strong, while also being cute to the max and utterly pleasing. There is really no luck to speak of in First Rat (except for the player order: more on that later). It’s all strategy: channel your inner Pizza Rat to outwit the other rats and reach your goals!
At its core, First Rat is a typical worker-placement, engine-building euro game. Start with two rats acquiring stuff on the junkyard track, try to get more rats on the board to help you acquire even more stuff, then convert that stuff into other stuff for points, points, points!
First Rat is unique in a couple of ways, beyond the veritable awesomeness of its theme and art: racing and movement. You want to be in front on the junkyard track so you don’t have to constantly be paying off other rats with cheese to use the space they are already on, and so that you’re first to the best resources. But on the other hand, you want to get as many resources as possible each turn which can keep you from being in front.
Movement is restricted to three spaces if you move more than one rat onto a resource, whereas moving a single rat per turn allows movement of up to five spaces. If moving more than one rat per turn, each rat must be on a resource space of matching color which further complicates matters. Often, you will find that you want to be where another player’s rat already is, forcing you to bribe it with your precious cheese. Acquiring cheese to pay off rats is an opportunity cost that keeps you from acquiring a different resource that could be useful in taking shortcuts on the board, building rocket parts, or advancing on the light track or obtaining more rats or comics from your rat burrow.
Getting to the junkyard merchants before they run out of goodies to sell you is key. Harry Hamster sells backpacks that allow you to store extra resources. Zippy Frog sells energy drinks that power up your resource acquisition, doubling it for a single turn. The Madcap Crow sells bottlecaps that award point bonuses at the end of the game. Some of these things can be very useful, and once they’re gone, they’re gone!
The game is very interesting mechanically, full of opportunities and opportunity costs. However, after playing a couple of games, we feel that there may be a first-player advantage. Even though First Rat is an engine builder at its core, and my partner/opponent was and is the queen of engine builders, I won the first game as the first player 86 to 27. I did get a third rat onto the junkyard track early on, but that being said, the score spread still seems quite high for two experienced gamers whose scores are not often extraordinarily different. The second game was much closer, but going second this time, I was behind the whole game. This is a racing game, and getting to the good stuff first matters.
Honestly, the end score didn’t matter much. That’s how fun the game is. You don’t feel like your time was wasted no matter how bad your score is, because unlike some bloated euro games in which many of the actions feel like an extraneous chore, most of the actions in First Rat are inherently fun.
While we have only played with two players so far, I suspect the game might become more tense and more interesting with three players, and I suspect 4 or 5 would create a chaotic, frustrating mess on the junkyard track, much like when the masses find your favorite hiking trails and ruin them IRL.
Theme
The thematic goodness of this game did not disappoint. I loved the junkyard merchants, Harry Hamster, Zippy Frog, and of course the Madcap Crow, who “takes a nip a little too often.”
You can also collect comics, which have pictures your rats can use as “instructions” for gaining super abilities. You can even use them to upgrade your rats to Super Rats! Then you can play as Rat Woman or Arnold Rattenegger, to name a couple. Your rat meeples actually get to wear their superhero “costume” on their back– the meeples’ tails are built to hold the superhero inserts. It’s absurdly cute and hilarious.
Semantically, the theme plays into the game throughout. Cheese is a commodity paid to other rats. Old metal junk from the junkyard is used to build rocket parts. Getting to the end of the junkyard track makes you an official rattronaut. You get a ton more points for being the first to light the way on the light track that runs parallel to the junkyard track, presumably because others behind you benefit from the light you created for them. Junkyard merchants sell items at a hefty price, but you can be like an actual rat and just steal from them if you don’t have the goods (or don’t want to pay it). Your thieving little rats will get booted back to the beginning of the junkyard track if they steal, but early in the game stealing often seems worth that price.
Game Art, Visual Design, and Production Value
I really appreciated the comical, humorous art on the board and throughout the rulebook. Even the cockroaches on the junkyard board are smiling. So many cute little details like that make the theme and happy mood really shine through. The rulebook and reference guide are also full of jokes and puns. The rulebook is also well-written. We did not have any trouble understanding how to set up and play our first game, except there weren’t images of how to apply the gray “neutral” player tokens in a 2-player game so we winged it and I think it worked well.
The individual player reference cards only contain icons, and to me they were inscrutable. At first you’ll almost definitely be relying on the handy reference sheet which explains the symbols on the goodies you obtain from junkyard merchants and the abilities awarded by the comics and Super Rats. Although the iconography is not particularly useful at first, like most icons, once you’ve played enough you’ll probably get used to them and recognize their meaning, but by that time you’ll know the game well enough you won’t need the reference cards anyway.
There are a ton of components. Painted wood rat meeples are adorable. The first player marker is a cute stand-up cardboard construction of a rattronaut illustration. The rest are mostly cardboard tokens. Component quality is average. Board is cardboard, box is sturdy.
The box really screams for an organizer. It’s just a garbage heap of stuff in plastic baggies when it’s put away, which makes it more work than necessary to set up and take down. The box is a somewhat odd size, so finding the right organizer might be a little tricky.
Conclusion
Overall we are really enjoying this game, despite our perception of a first player advantage. We might try to rectify the issue by giving the second player a can of peas instead of a mere single cheese.
All in all, in our estimation, this game is a good buy at an MSRP of just under $40. We have certainly paid more for less in both game design and production quality. We think it would be a good fit for families, euro gamers, and anyone who likes having fun.
We’ve got a new First Rat unboxing video up on our Youtube channel if you’re curious about what’s in the box, component quality, etc.
