Beschreibung
Board game featuring the Julia Donaldson & Axel Scheffier character, The Highway Rat (and friends) from the World of The Gruffalo. Art of box, board and character playing pieces is true to Axel Scheffier's distinctive work for the books. A compact and attractive package (box is 27cm x 21cm x 5cm), the board folds into four and features a built-in spinner. The look and feel of box, pieces and board are all excellent and add a great deal to the atmosphere of the game particularly if you are a fan of the books and characters. Children who follow the work of Donaldson & Sheffier will love it.

The aim of the game is to be the first player to find four different cakes and puddings and race to the finish without the Highway Rat catching you.

Preparation phase is shuffling the 16 pudding cards and distributing 4 cards to each of the 4 card spaces on the board. Each of up to 4 players choses a character playing piece and places them at the start. The Highway Rat piece is placed on his own special start space across the board.

Youngest player goes first, spinning the board's built-in spinner. The spinner has two concentric number rings: an outer numbering 1,2,3,4,5,6 and an inner numbering 1,2,3. Each player moves their own playing piece according to the outer spinner ring number and moves the Highway Rat piece the number of spaces indicated on the inner ring. The player can move their piece or the Highway Rat first but must move both in a clockwise direction. Players must move to the next empty space if their spin lands them on an already occupied space.

There are a number of special spaces operating in a snakes and ladders mode: spin again, miss a turn, lose a card and Lucky Clover spaces enabling a shortcut path to be taken; the Lucky Clover shortcuts are also sanctuaries as the Highway Rat may not follow their lighter coloured spaces. If a player lands on a Card space they take the top card and if it is a cake/pudding they require for their set of 4 (3 different delicious looking cakes and some fun Gruffalo tarts) they keep it else return it to the bottom of the pile.

If any player lands on The Highway Rat start space they spin again just for the Rat giving him an extra turn.

The mechanics of the Highway Rat's pursuit are quite clever. He can only move a maximum of three spaces to the player's maximum of 6 but he gets to move at each player's turn thus he does run them down.

If the Highway Rat lands on the exact space of a player's piece then that player returns to Start and they lose all the cakes/puddings they have so far collected.

The Winner is the first player to collect all 4 cakes/puddings and arrive at the party at the End and shout "Stand and Deliver !". Only a player with all four cakes/puddings can enter the special area of the End/Party and the Highway Rat, the notorious cake/pudding thief, cannot enter the Party at all, he's not invited.

This charming game is mostly spin and move with some decision as to whether to move one's playing piece or the Highway Rat first. Rules are simple, clear and watertight. Fun and tension reign in the group as the Highway Rat tries to steal their cakes/pudding and send each of them back to the start.

Contents:

Game board with built-in spinner

4x playing pieces with stands

Highway Rat piece with stand

16x cake/pudding cards

Rules sheet