Picky Packrats

Introduction

In Picky Packrats, you are a packrat neatly arranging the treasures you have collected in your midden (nest). You add treasures by raiding the house or other packrat middens. You are very particular and want everything ‘just so.’

Unfortunately, like all packrats, you are very forgetful, so you need to remind yourself what treasures you have already packed away, while you try to arrange them in your midden to near perfection.

When you really like where your treasures are hidden, you cement them in place. Once you or another packrat cements everything down, you compare middens.

The pickiest packrat—the one with the most organized midden—wins!

Picky Packrats

Availability

Picky Packrats is available on The Game Crafter as of Sept. 30 2021.

Download the rulebook to see if the game interests you.

If you are interested in purchasing the game, please check it out on The Game Crafter.

If you are interested in the history and development of the game, read on here. (Then check it out on the Game Crafter).

Development

Origin

Picky Packrats is based on the traditional card game called: Golf, Nines, Nine Holes of Golf, etc.

If you are interested in the makeover of the original game that resulted in what is now Picky Packrats, you can review it in the design blog starting with Game Makeover: Nines. The makeover took place from mid 2014 through mid 2015, with some changes in 2017 after hundreds of playtests where games stats were captured and analyzed.

Publication

Publication as a print on demand product on the Game Crafter is a long-overdue and natural next step for the game. I finally acquired high quality art for the components and marketing, which made this possible.

Next Steps

Where Picky Packrats goes from here depends on its reception. If a no publisher is interested, a possible, obvious next step would be Kickstarter. Through Kickstarter we could pay for a professional graphic design and fund a lower cost production and therefore a lower retail price.

Play Summary

What is Picky Packrats

Picky Packrats is a tactical, small-deck card game. The most organized tableau scores the least points and wins the game. Play 1-3 games at 10-15 minutes per game.

Turns and games are quick, so play a best-of-three tournament for more fun.

Basics of Game Play

Setup

You start by drafting three treasures from the “house” that you add to one wild and five hidden treasures. The house always has three treasures available to all players.

You form your midden by placing your nine treasures wherever you want in a grid (or circle for advanced players).

Player Turn

On your turn take two actions of your choice in any order (including the same action twice)

Peek at or reveal a concealed treasure in your midden without showing it to the other players. You can peek first and decide then if you want to reveal the treasure.
Conceal (turn over) a revealed treasure to use its ability. (see Treasure Abilities). You must use its ability if you can.
Conceal (turn over) two revealed treasures with the same item and number to use the ability of any revealed treasure in the game. (see Treasure Abilities).
Cement some of your treasures to prevent another player from messing with them. But neither can you…

Treasure Abilities

There are eight treasure abilities, one for each value of treasure. These abilities are the heart of Picky Packrats. They allow you to:

Conceal, reveal, or peek at treasures in other players’ middens and the house.
Reveal or peek at two of your treasures.
Raid other players’ middens or the house for treasure.
Force other players to raid the house and lose a treasure you pick.
Swap the treasures around in your midden to make it neat. Remember, the neatest wins.

Game End

When one player cements all their treasures down, you each get one more action. Then it is on to scoring.

Scoring and Winning

Score your midden by taking penalty points for treasures that are messy and bonus points for good form.

The lowest score wins.

Advanced Rules

After you have played a few games, you may want to try the advanced rules. The changes are simple, but new players may have trouble visualizing the difference. The advanced rules allow more scoring possibilities, especially for 3-player games.

Layout

Arrange your midden with eight treasures in a circle with a treasure in the center (see Advanced Layout). Now you can treat arcs of three or more adjacent treasures around the circle as a line.

Cement Action

Cement your choice of a single treasure or a line or arc of three adjacent treasures in your midden.

Scoring

Treat any arc of three or more treasures as a line for scoring. So in one arc, (with at least one wild) you may have a collection of eight treasures (-8 points). In a 3-player game, you may have a set of four treasures (one of each color) in an arc.

Solo Mode

In solo mode, you face Roborat in a race to organize the neatest nest you can. Change up the difficulty with 9 Easy-Hard mode settings.

Mechanics

Theme

Packrats picking through their middens, trying to make the perfect collection.

Drafting = raiding the house.
Peeking/Revealing = reminding yourself of what is in your midden.
Concealing (to spend action) = reminding yourself of something you wanted to do.
Cement = permanently incorporating the item into your midden.

Setup Time: 2 min

Components

Cards

33 treasure cards, 7 each of 4 colors and 5 wilds

Tokens

24 cement tokens

(icon and text sides)

Player Aids

3 quick reference and score cards

Other Bits

1 dry erase marker

1 rulebook

Market

Intended Market

This game is primarily intended as a “Next Step” game, particularly for people who enjoy the traditional family card games, but are looking for a little more strategy and less luck.

Marketability

Due to the very limited components (especially if the locks are just cards instead of tokens or a step up to small sheet cardboard tokens like in Saboteur 2), the game could sell for a low cost.

Current Implementation

As published on the Game Crafter, with one-off purchases, the game might be too expensive for the intended market. But high quality components and a complete package (includes dry erase marker) are important to me. In mass production, the game could retail around $20 with the same components.