Image credit to the author
Poker is quite fertile ground for game designers, given that its hands are a fairly universal language for card game players; games such as Balatro have proven that there’s plenty of mileage in Poker-based mechanics too. River Rats pulls off a similar trick, with cooperative gameplay, variable player powers, and tough bosses being added to a Poker-based framework.
Is it worth playing? Let’s take a look!
Getting Started With River Rats
One of the coolest things about River Rats is that, even though it does have its own themed deck of gorgeously illustrated cards, it’s perfectly possible to play with a normal deck of cards, as long as you have two Joker cards and the standard 52 cards.
You’ll also need the bespoke reference cards to ensure you have the Joker’s Prediction, River Rat, card and player powers to hand, though these are available in print and play form, or even to refer to onscreen, on the official River Rats website.
What’s even better is that these are, along with the rules themselves, currently free to download.
To set up, 1-4 players can each choose an Ace to be their character for the game; each suit corresponds to a different animal on a cruise, taking part in the Poker game which the cybernetically enhanced, wealthy River Rats have forced the crew members to play. Two River Rats are dealt from the four Kings in the deck; one face up to be the first opponent, and one face down to be the second. The object of the game is to defeat both River Rats by collectively beating their Poker hand and saddling them with five debt cards each.
The current River Rat’s hand is dealt out at the beginning of each round, with five face up cards and two face down. A debt card is dealt next to the Joker’s Prediction reference card, which also denotes the hand required for players to have the chance at getting their paws on a Joker card. In the example above, the 9 is the debt card. If you look at the Joker’s Prediction reference to the left, you’ll see that a 9 means that, if the players manage to create a flush with their collective hand, a Joker becomes available to draw.
Once each player has two cards in their personal hands, and a market of three face up cards has been dealt, play can begin.
How to Play River Rats
On each turn, players will draw up to their hand limit, either by taking cards from the face up market or the draw deck, then play a card to the collective hand, face up below the River Rat’s hand in the play area. Once five cards are played to the collective hand, the River Rat’s face down cards are revealed and the two hands compared; if the collective hand is stronger than the River Rat’s hand, the debt is given face down to the River Rat, and they lose if they gain five. Conversely, if the River Rat’s hand wins, the players get the debt, and if they accrue five debt cards, the game is lost.
In the example above, the River Rat’s hand (at the top of the image) has Queen, Queen, 6, 9, and 10 face up, with two face down cards which could improve the hand. The collective hand of the players is beneath it, with 8, 5, 8, 5; so far so good, as they have two pairs. However, those two face down cards may make all the difference, and we can see next to the Ace of Clubs that the player doesn’t have another 5 or 8 to make it a full house, so the players may or may not win that hand by the time the outcome is reached.
Sounds simple, right? Yet there are mechanics which give each turn quite a bit of depth, and plenty of choices to make despite the straightforward nature of the gameplay. Each animal species (and therefore, suit) has their own action type, with players able to make use of enhanced versions of these powers if their own suit matches a card played.
The Club suit are birds, and bird abilities are based on adding cards, from the player’s hand to the market. Spades are otters, who can discard cards from a player’s hand or the market. Then we have crocodiles in the Heart suit, who can take risks by adding to the debt. Finally, bugs feature as the Diamond suit, and their actions are based around swapping the position of cards from the collective hand to either the player’s hand or the market.
Though of course you’ll want to put together a hand which beats the one that the active River Rat appears to have (and of course, with two cards face down, they may have a stronger hand than is apparent from their face up cards), it sometimes makes sense, if you don’t have many useful options in your hand, to use a card ability which will improve the collective hand or market for you or the next player.
There’s one key rule that makes the strategy much more challenging in any given round, however: players aren’t allowed to discuss what they have in their personal hands. Strategy for beating the River Rat is allowed, for example, (“they may have two pair, so we need at least three of a kind to win”), or just general discussion around strategy, but you’re not permitted to discuss specifics of your cards (“I have two 3s, so we have at least one pair”) at all.
Is River Rats Fun to Play?
Though there’s a bit of a learning curve involved in getting your head around the game’s concepts of debt and special abilities, River Rats is a pretty straightforward game to play in practice, and its basis in Poker-based mechanics makes it pretty intuitive if you’re already familiar with Poker hands.
The River Rats themselves, along with the different suit actions and player powers, give River Rats a depth that’s surprising, and very welcome; it’s a really solid design, and even more impressive given that it brings such a strategic feel to what is, essentially, just a standard deck of cards.
Though the rules need a bit of tweaking to make some of the game’s concepts clearer (and a playmat with the various play areas marked on it, spotted in the game’s trailers, would be incredibly useful), it’s definitely worth noting that the version of the game I’ve used to review River Rats is a prototype, so there’s likely to be some tidying up of the rulebook and player aid cards prior to the game’s full release. Crowdfunding on Kickstarter starts May 12th, and you can sign up for the pre-launch page here.
The Card Gamer Verdict
With rules and cards that fully fit into a compact box no bigger than a standard deck of cards, River Rats feels like a much bigger and more strategic game than it appears to be at first glance
Once the initial learning curve is overcome, River Rats becomes a straightforward game to play, and it really rewards clever use of its variable player and card abilities.
Given that it’s perfectly possible to play using any standard deck of cards, River Rats also has a very low barrier of entry in terms of its cost, but the officially illustrated deck, with its wide variety of characterful artwork, does add a great deal of charm to the game’s aesthetics.
Overall, River Rats is a highly enjoyable, Poker-based cooperative game, and it makes great use of familiar components (and mechanics) to provide a unique and involving experience.
Want to check out other small, standalone card games? Take a look at our review of minimalist deduction game, Classified Information, or our review of the rock, paper, scissors-based card game, Ninjan.
