Squeak! ! Watch out for rats! ! A group of hungry mice are about to sneak into the castle to steal cheese. Who would have expected that there are many traps hidden in the castle, which is extremely thrilling. The board game "The castle of Appenzell" was born in 2007 and won the "Germany's Best Children's Game Award" (Deutscher Spielepreis Bestes Kinderspiel) in the same year. The story background is interesting and very exciting to play. The play method is simple and easy to understand, suitable for different age groups, and suitable for the whole family to play. The game more effectively trains players' observation, memory and reasoning abilities. It is suitable for you who are looking for a board game to play with friends or children. Before buying, you can first understand whether the gameplay is suitable for you.
Background of "Rat Castle"
The game requires players to play as a group of mice who want to eat cheese and explore the castle to find cheese to fill their stomachs. The castle seems to be like a huge mousetrap, with terrible traps hidden inside. If you are not careful, you may fall into the bottomless abyss. Players need to find different types of cheese. The first player to find 4 types of cheese wins.
Number of players: 3-4 people
Suitable age: 6 years old and above (it’s more exciting for adults to play!)
Game difficulty: ⭐️⭐️
Game time: about 30 minutes
3 major gaming benefits
1. Exercise memory
In the game, players need to remember the locations of different tiles. On the one hand, they have to get cheese, and on the other hand, they have to avoid traps to avoid falling into the hole.
2. Train planar logical thinking
Players need to move and obtain cheese in 4 actions, and they must choose their actions carefully in the limited number of steps.
3. Develop reasoning skills
During the action, players not only have to think about how to obtain resources in a limited number of steps, but also beware of other players pushing themselves into the hole.
Shulaibao game settings
Form the base of the castle into a chessboard, set aside the smaller cheese slices (these are for scoring purposes), and randomly place the larger push tiles over the holes in the base. After placing it, there will be 1 piece left, which is also placed aside for later use (will be used later!). After that, the partitions with holes were placed on the panels, and roofs of three different colors and sizes were covered according to the colors on the partitions. Finally, the castle towers were placed on the four corners.
Rat Castle game play
The first player to find 4 cheeses with different patterns wins. If you want to extend the game time, you can increase the number of cheeses to 5 or 6 types. Each player chooses a mouse of a color and gets 4 mice of that color. Each player places a mouse in one of the towers at the four corners of the castle. Choose a player as the starting point and take turns in clockwise direction. Players can take 4 actions each round, and for each action they can choose the following 4 ways:
1) Explore
The roofs within the nine-square grid of the grid where the mouse is located can be opened. Each roof opened is regarded as an action.
2)Move
Players can move the mouse one square, and can only choose to move forward, backward, left, and right, but not diagonally. And you can only move in the open roof area, and each move will be regarded as an action. If another rat blocks your path, you can pass him but cannot stop in the same space as him. Passing by him counts as one action. (Once the mouse is out, it cannot return to the tower)
3) Enter the tower
Players can move the mouse one square, and can only choose to move forward, backward, left, and right, but not diagonally. And you can only move in the open roof area, and each move will be regarded as an action. If another rat blocks your path, you can pass him but cannot stop in the same space as him. Passing by him counts as one action. (Once the mouse is out, it cannot return to the tower)
4) Move (choose at most once)
The extra plate that came out before will be useful! There are also red flags on each side around the base of the castle. You can push tiles onto those flags, but another tile will come out on the corresponding side. After moving, the tiles in the castle will change, and other people's mice can also be pushed into the trap. At the end of the round, the roofs of the rooms without mice must be put back according to the color.
How to get cheese
If you have 2 mice standing on 2 locations of the same cheese in the castle, you can get the corresponding cheese card for scoring. Each type of cheese can only be collected once.
game over
The game will end when one of the following conditions is met.
1. Someone collects 4 different cheeses, that player wins!
2. If there is only one mouse left, the remaining players win!
"Ray Castle" is available at Toy-let, click on the link below to buy this fun and educational board game!
