Rats of Wistar - Board Game First Impressions

Let's go!
Another video, another game!
Today, we are looking at another one of our most anticipated games from Spiel 2023, the new game from Danilo Sabia and Simone Luciani, published by Cranio Creations.
Today, we are taking a look at Rats of Wistar.
Will this be a new hit, or one that we might want to forget all about? Check out the review to find out what our firrst impressions of this game is!
Thank you all so much for watchinig! We appreciate every one of you :D
Check out the game on BGG here:
boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3...
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#boardgamegeek #boardgames #review #spiel
Timestamps:
Intro: 00:00
Overview: 01:08
Artwork & Components: 02:18
Rulebook & player Aids: 03:47
Playtime & Player Count: 05:32
Worker placement puzzle is really good: 06:45
Digging dirt, making beds & inventing cool stuff: 08:40
Layers upon layers of randomness: 11:47
Exploring is our least favorite part: 13:35
Weight & Who is it for: 18:51
Is it fun & Final Thoughts: 19:36

[@uxjared]

It seems the Guest Mice with powers should be face up at set up. I also wonder if it would be more interesting if having /discarding X door tokens or having more mice exploring the house would let you draw X room cards on exploring the room, choosing one and discarding remaining (it would also make the game look better by not having the ugly card backs on the board). That way, further investing in exploring the house would have a benefit and provide meaningful choices itself.

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

Yeah, for me, these things would make the game better! :)

[@andreamerlina9771]

Nice video! I think at 17:40 it is incorrect to say "you can't use the jockers inside the house". You can use them to fulfill missions :)

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

You are correct! Sorry about that :)

[@daveheasman3680]

That feels like a pretty major mistake - would it be worth adding a note to the video to point that out

[@brettspielfieber8109]

it does make a big difference to play this rule correctly! i think it‘s an awesome game! 😁

[@fingaynslei7677]

Interesting, I played the game on a convention just yesterday and for all three players the exploration part was seen as the most rewarding thing to do. Also complete some quests early on and remove some cubes of the player boards by doing so felt very strong, especially in the cellar. The guy teaching the rules said that its allowed to use the joker ability tokens for quests too, so it was much easier for us to complete them, I guess. Only for the open goals under the action wheel they are forbidden to use, which is fair. So overall we had a pretty good experience, I would rate it 8.5-9 by myself! My only complain would be the hidden guest rats, place them open while setting up the game and its fixed without screwing up the balance I think!

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

Glad to hear you liked it! And you are correct, you can use jokers in the house! I liked many parts of it, but didn't end up loving it, sadly!

[@fingaynslei7677]

So keep up the great work and keep playing the games you love! Thanks for the review, always interesting to hear different perspectives about good games and find new gems!@@BoardGamingRamblings

[@OSB911]

A very helpful review. Thank you!

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

Thank you! Glad you enjoyed it 🤩

[@ko9]

It seemed to me that the more cards etc you have in this game, the easier it gets to gain more cards and resources. This led to a serious runaway leader in our game, the winner just kept getting further and further ahead of everyone.

[@ko9]

E.g. If you have some easy inventions to build that happen to match the first mission requirements, you can complete those missions easily and earn more inventions, as well as unlocking extra powers. The new inventions and powers will make it easier to complete the next missions, etc. Basically the first player who gets that ball rolling will win the game, there's no catch-up mechanism that I could see in this game. We knew after 2 rounds who was going to win, and played for another hour knowing we never had any chance to catch up. I had a miserable time playing this game, it reminded me of playing Monopoly as a kid, where you had to play the game for hours after you already knew who'd won. My worst game of the fair, by far.

[@Socksrule3032]

Thanks for putting into words my feelings on this game. I love parts of the game, but the randomness can either really help or really hurt.

[@chriswalker3375]

It was a GREAT movie! (-;

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

Absolutely agree!

[@mattschwenk7000]

I was hoping for more from my favorite designer Luciani. Oh well, I am loving Nucleum, it gets better with each play.

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

So many games to choose from, but I know what you mean! I would love it for all the games we play to be amazing! 😅🥳

[@brettspielfieber8109]

it‘s a great game, give it a chance! 😉

[@mattschwenk7000]

​@@brettspielfieber8109 Yes, I will probably still get it since Luciana is my fav designer

[@redeyedghost1406]

Thanks for the review! My interested in this one had already waned quite significantly, but this pushed it into the definitely pass on it territory.

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

Luckily there are so many other great games to choose from this year! (Or other years of course) :)

[@redeyedghost1406]

@@BoardGamingRamblings Indeed, indeed. I'm just typically a big fan of Luciani's games.

[@RulebooksForYou]

@@BoardGamingRamblingsso many good games!

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

@@redeyedghost1406 Yeah, me as well! Not all, but most of his designs are huge hits with me!

[@brettspielfieber8109]

give it a chance! fans of Luciani won‘t be disappointed!

[@jeffgoggin1394]

You never need to rate games. You can tell how you feel just by the WAY you say "it's a fun game"

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

Haha, it’s the new rating system 😂

[@-DoubleLayer-]

We like this game! We will Made a gameplay!

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

Glad to hear you’re having fun :)

[@Oaklestat]

118 Victory points for each of you

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

Woop! Thank you 🤩

[@rickgoodman8911]

They are being kind…

[@a-c-m]

Hmm. Is “First Impressions” a euphemism for “we can’t be bothered playing this game again” and as more plays would be required for a full review we will never hear from you again about the game ?

[@BoardGamingRamblings]

It’s a lot of different things! Sometimes we use first impressions for super hot games, to get out some feelings for it fast! This time it was probably a few different reasons: -We have loads of games we want to cover -This was a game we looked forward to, so we wanted to cover it -It was not a review copy, so it’s lower on the priority list -In our plays, (two for me, one for Sunniva) we found it to not be a game that we loved, and want to spend our time playing other games we hopefully will like better Also, we could have easily called it a review, not mentioned how many times we played, and rated it, but we want to be transparent and honest with what it is! I don’t think my feelings would change much if I played it 2-3 more times, but it still felt better calling it a first impressions! Hope that answers your question :)