Rattaneer（ねずみ海賊ラッタニア）, a game released in 2017 from OKAZU Brand

Today I will introduce "Rattaneer（ねずみ海賊ラッタニア）", a game released in 2017 from OKAZU Brand.

Rattaneer (BoardGameGeek)

In Rattaneer, players want to become boss of the mouse pirates, but to do so they must earn money, hire pirates, loot boats, then convert that loot to victory points.
Each round, players secretly select where they want to take actions on the row of eleven tiles: the day laborer, the tavern, the docks, the water, and the looting ship. Whether you'll get to take all of those actions depends on what everyone else does, so choose wisely! 

(a quotation from BoardGameGeek) 

Rattaneer is a game in which players vie to become the head pirate of a mouse pirate crew. 

The game is set around a row of 10 + 1 area tiles.
There is a work camp to earn money, a tavern to hire hands and allies, a vast ocean full of treasure-laden ships to plunder, a trading port to cash your loot in, and a legendary island rumoured to hold lots of VP. 

Players secretly decide where they would like to place their pirate tokens behind their player board and simultaneously reveal them.

As long as there is a pirate token in consecutive area tiles from left to right, the actions are successful. However, if there are empty area tiles, any tokens to the right have failed and are sent to the farm to labour for pittance.

Try to figure out what other players want to do and plan a strategy such that the areas you want to go to are connected by all players’ tokens!





Another key to the game is to use companions with various abilities as well as hidden treasures with powerful abilities in order to become the next head mouse pirate!

(a quotation from the English rulebook)

I played Rattaneer with Hisashi Hayashi, the designer of Rattaneer on 16th February.  He showed excellent play in the game and won the game.  After the game, Hisashi Hayashi autographed on my Rattaneer.

Hisashi Hayashi is one of the leading board game designers in Japan.
He founded OKAZU Brand in 2007, and he created many board games such as "String Railway", "Trains", "Sail to India", "Yokohama".


Below is my impression of this game.

Rattaneer does not have enough presence to become a masterpiece of Hisashi Hayashi.  Games of simultaneous action selection mechanism are common.  

However, this is a nice family game that a wide range of players can enjoy from beginners to skilled gamers.  Through this game, I felt the experience and skill of Hisashi Hayashi who can create good games constantly.