Rats of Wistar

Rats of Wistar arrives looking sweet — rodents in a house, hunting for cheese — then proceeds to occupy the table like a small factory. Icons everywhere, cards everywhere, choices that breed further choices. It is the sort of game that looks charming until you are trying to establish which of the fifteen things currently happening actually concerns you.

At heart, it is worker placement with resources to gather, cards to exploit, and actions to chain together. You can take the straightforward feeder actions that bring in materials, or build a larger combo that unfolds into several actions at once. There are genuinely countless routes to victory, and repeat plays make it easier to see how those routes can be pursued.

The trouble is the rhythm between players. You take one or two feeder actions, then wait while someone else unspools a five-action turn and the table watches their private production schedule. Interaction is largely about occupying space and enduring the time consumed by another player's combo; not spiteful, but enough downtime to have you counting icons.

It is not a bad game, and familiarity should make it quicker and strategically sharper. But its logic reminded me of Woodcraft, which tired me for similar reasons: too many cards, a fair amount of randomness, and far too many moving parts. For the same effort, I would rather put out some cured fish.