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From publisher blurb:
Something sinister is brewing in the Emerald forest!
It starts off simple, as they do. A group of fresh-faced adventurers is tasked with clearing out rats in the tavern cellar. What they find down there is something more than they bargained for. Now, they have to make a perilous journey across an uncharted forest to face off against an unknown threat (it’s a swarm of Brainium Rats). The fate of the entire world might be at stake! (or that of a small hamlet, at any rate!)
Ratcatchers is a 4-6 hour setting neutral one-shot adventure for four to five characters of level 1-2. It has been designed keeping in mind players new to the game.
Features
A 25 page full-color and fully illustrated PDF, a printer friendly B&W version, and a tested for screen readers accessible version.
A beginner friendly adventure that hangs a lampshade on RPG tropes, then sets said lampshade on fire.
A template to convert any beast into were-rat hybrids. Rat-bunny and rat-pigeon, a.k.a. Trash Gryphons included.
Several colorful battle maps for VTT use.
Terrible rat based puns.
Content Warning: The intended tone of this adventure is a mix of horror and comedy. Where it exactly lies on the spectrum of horror to comedy is up to you, the DM, and your players. There is depiction of body transformation and body horror, parental neglect and tight spaces. Also, there are rats. Lots and lots of rats.
- Solo game with tile exploration and combat mechanics and lots of cute little rat meeples.
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Combat — Mentioned as a game mechanism.
- Tile exploration — Mentioned as a game mechanism.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- hi I'm here with Matthew athlean with his new game spy goons vital industries
- so spy goons is based on the idea that you are the few minions of an evil mastermind and you are trying to under undertake the plans of building a doomsday plan
- so you win by collecting all the required materials and undertaking the fairest tasks for the evil mastermind in a timely fashion before time can run out
- so the game McKenna Sims has it got so the game mechanisms more like worker placement set gathering and dice rolling
- so it looks like it's going to be hitting through publishers so you'll have to wait for a little bit more info on that one but we'll probably end up with a Kickstarter or some stage or another
- so hopefully sometime next year hopefully yes it's your only game well you've got other games as well
- we've got a few other games that we're working on at the moment as well we've got an Australian classic drop is based on an 80 slash of style tile exploration game and rat catcher which is a solo game with tile explorations and combat mechanics and lots of cute little rat Maples
- yes the rat catcher was part of one of the competitions set in America by the game crafter for a solo competition it was quite a challenge and it was only a three month time period
- spy goons is the complete opposite so it's a long term project that we've been chewing on for about three years now
- goons will probably be up to a publisher to decide on what they want to do with the artwork
- well thank you so much for sharing it with us metal rattling thank you
References (from this video)
- Cute little rats are fun to collect.
- Players are rat catchers hunting magical cheese and rescuing it from magically imbued rats.
- Victorian England
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- character growth — The player character can grow or improve.
- Combat — Players engage in combat with rats.
- Dice Rolling — Dice rolling is used for combat.
- Random Exploration — Exploration occurs through moving from tile to tile.
- solo — A solo board game.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- We are a pack of crooks, we're all working together kind of, we're getting through some security but essentially we also whilst we're doing this, we're working out who gets the loot, so we're a semi coop type of deal going on here.
- It's a micro economic game where you get to play a florist trying to fill orders from a floral market but it's a little bit cutthroat.
- Rolling with the Waves is a high interaction rollin right, so something that not a lot of rolling rights have.
- Rat catcher is a solo board game based in Victorian England where you will be a rat catcher hunting down magical cheese and rescuing it from a horde of magically imbued rats.
- Animal Empire is a game about being animal monarchs in a world where all the humans are dead.
- It is an awesome card game that accidentally teaches you music theory.
- Runecax is a game kind of like a young adult fiction set in a fantasy world.
- Scuffin it's an all-you-can-eat diner set in the 80s it's a bit dodgy.
- I Have the Biggest Sword is about building the biggest sword.
- It's a battle royale game for about two to six players.
- It's absolutely a party game it sort of falls in the same vein it's like because against humanity' kind of thing but very quick play very quick to set up I'm very quick to play.
- We're more than happy to speak to those over the top door but until then we're happy to being the bottom of the barrel.