RANKaree Overview and Giveaway!

Category: Strategy Age: 8+ 15 - 60 Min 3 - 7 Players 2018

RANKaree is the latest game of Cheeky Dingo Games, a sci-fi game set in the Living Starship universe just launched on Kickstarter!

GAME OVERVIEW

In RANKaree you take on a role of a Citadel Fleet ship’s captain trying to successfully make the most out of your crew when assigning them to tricky missions.

Components

It is a fast-paced card game with three different type of cards, Officers, Enlisted and Alerts. The first two come in sets of seven from each available color and numbered from 1-7. There are 7 colors in the game, each representing a single Division, like Operations(gold), Health(amethyst) and so on. Alerts are event-like cards which are resolved immediately when drawn and are also used to keep track of the game end.

There are also 3 Mission tokens for each Division, which you try to collect throughout the game because these will score you points!

Goal & Game End

The goal of the game is to have the most points at the end of the game, which you get by the claimed Mission tokens plus the numeric value of the card that claimed them.

The game ends when the 7th Alert card is drawn!

Game Flow

You start the game by drawing 7 cards at random and then shuffling 7 Alert cards inside the deck. Seven is the magic number!

The game is played in Missions which essentially represent a game Round. Draw as many Mission tokens as the number of players + 2 and you just created the first Mission. When these are depleted the Mission is over and you all score points according to your performance. Draw the same number of tokens +1 more than the last Mission and you are ready to go. Repeat this until the game ends!

That was the basic structure of the rounds and game end, but let’s see what you can do on your turn. On your turn you will play any one card or two Enlisted cards (if you pay one VP) and then replenish your hand (back to the magic number). Additionally, you can just discard a card and draw a new one instead of playing. The game will proceed clockwise until the end of it.

When you play a card you will claim and actually place all the tokens of that Division on that card, easy, right? But here is the catch! When another player plays a “stronger” card than the one holding the claimed tokens, it steals them and “kills” (discards) the card.

Here is the ranking of the cards:

– An Officer beats all Enlisted cards, any Officer of a lower rank (value) and pairs of Enlisted cards if you play him later than the latter.

– An Enlisted card will only beat Enlisted cards of lower value.

– A pair of Enlisted cards can beat an Officer of lower rank than the sum of their ranks when you play them.

And this is pretty much the whole game!

Thoughts

As you can tell from the volume of the rules this is a simple and quick family game that you can have it as a filler or little brain teaser. I see a deductive nature in it as the cards are not shuffled, along with a bluffing one as you will go back and forth claiming missions by outranking other cards. All these, in the right timing. As I read through the rules it makes me want to try it for sure as I like to have these types of games, if that’s the case for you make sure to check out Rankaree on Kickstarter!

Cheeky Dingo Games is giving away 3 copies of RANKaree!

Rankaree Giveaway



The games will be given away and shipped – if RANKaree gets funded on Kickstarter – by The Cheeky Dingo Games. The winners are picked randomly and will be informed within a week after the draw! All giveaways follow BoardGame Stories’ Terms and Conditions!

Press Release by Cheeky Dingo Games:

RANKaree is an easygoing card game that utilizes hexagonal cards emblazoned with fictional military rank insignia for officers and enlisted crew. The game is fast to learn and is suitable for ages 10 and up making it great for family game nights, for gatherings of casual gamers and for hardcore hobby gamers who want a speedy game in between their more lengthy play sessions.

Playing RANKaree is effortless. Players will always have a hand of 7 cards and there are a number of random mission tokens available to be claimed each round.

There are 7 suits (colors) of cards and each suit has 7 officers and 7 enlisted of increasing rank. Players must play one card on their turn. That card claims all matching mission tokens of its color IF it ranks higher than the card currently holding the tokens. The game continues until all mission tokens have been claimed.

The player with the most tokens wins! RANKaree features a light “take-that” play style that becomes more contentious as rivalries mount to claim the most valuable missions tokens. Because each new round offers an increasing number of mission tokens, it is entirely possible for players with lagging scores to roar into the lead making sure that no one is ever out of the game.

RANKaree is for 3 to 7 players, ages 10 and up. Each round lasts from 3-10 minutes and full games can be completed in 45 minutes or less. The game box includes 98 hexagonal crew cards in 7 colors (Engineering, Agency, Flight, Science, Operations, Health & Tactical) with 7 officers and 7 enlisted of each color. There are 10 “Alert” cards that serve as a timer for the game and to introduce minor setbacks during play. There are 21 chipboard, hexagonal mission tokens – 3 of each color.

Kickstarter Stretch Goals may include additional Alert cards, additional mission tokens, a score pad and component “upgrades” such as sculpted plastic mission tokens in place of cardboard. Expected MSRP: $20 US. Expected release to retailers and distributors late Q3 2018 (and slightly earlier to Kickstarter campaign backers).

About Cheeky Dingo Games

A Denver-based game design company that specializes in cooperative games, casual games and niche market games that major publishers have yet to tap, namely the LGBT market.

Published games include: ElfQuest® Adventure Game, HouseBoy the Gay Board Game, Drag Show the Contentious Drinking Game, and Dog Walker a family game of canine business.