Pi-Rats!
The table top adventure card game
Pi-rats! Is a competitive table top adventure card game for 2-4 players ages 8 and up.
Play as one of four intrepid Pi-Rat captains as you navigate the perils of the sea in search of the ultimate prize - Briebeard’s Golden Cheddar! But first, you’ll need to assemble the finest crew and the mightiest ship Port Spoil can offer…
A standard, two player game of Pi-Rats! lasts about ~40 minutes, with an additional 20-25 minutes per every additional player.
About
Edit Feb. ‘22 - Pi-Rats! Is now available as a workshop on the Steam TableTop Simulator platform!
Find the Pi-Rats! Beta TTS Workshop here.
In its current form, Pi-Rats! is a free-to-download, print-at-home card game that uses simple chance mechanics (dice rolls and card-drawing) to create a one-of-a-kind high seas adventure - no two games play the same!
What started as a joke (pirate-rats = ‘pi-rats’) between Mary Rath and Derek Smootz quickly escalated into a wildly silly endeavor that was equal parts serious table-top game development and design, and an effort to put some more joy in the world after a long and difficult year spent in COVID quarantine. We wanted to share our ratties with the world, and between the two of us - Derek being the primary designer/mastermind for the game mechanics, and myself being the primary character artist, art director, and world-builder - this seemed like the best (if not perhaps the wisest) use of our time.
We also enlisted Seattle-based illustrator Beau Beavers to handle the background and texture illustrations. Beau is a SCAD alumni with a background in character and concept art. You can find more of his phenomenal portfolio here.
A short disclaimer: neither of us are making any money from this, and don’t really have any plans to attempt to (unless we pitch it to an independent game publishing company - something you can help us with! See details below). This entire endeavor was done just for fun, and because we could.
Game Files
To start playing, print the following 50-page .PDF files using either a printer with double-sided print capabilities (alternatively, print one sheet at a time, and simply re-feed the sheet into printer to produce the corresponding card backs), or take the files to your local print/fedex store to have them print it for you.
Having trouble accessing the files? Try switching your browser to Incognito mode.
Printing and Game Notes:
If you opt to take the files to a print shop, the self-service printing option will always be the cheapest, by a significant margin. Be sure to check the shop’s paper weight and page count rates before selecting a print option.
The rule book is an optional printing file. You can also have it available to reference on any electronic reader or device to keep printing costs down.
Heavy card stock with full color ink is recommended for printing.
Every printer’s individual calibrations are different. As much as the templates are formatted to print even margins as closely as possible, there will always be variations between individual printer settings (meaning the bleed and print margins may not print exactly perfectly or evenly for everyone, but the cards themselves are still fully playable!)
This version of Pi-Rats! Is a BYOD (Bring Yer Own Dice) game. You will need at least one of each of the following die to share/distribute among players (alternatively, you can use an app like Dice Roller (Apple), or RPG Simple Dice (Android), or a website like RollaDie.net that generate these die for you):
a D6 (six-sided die, or a standard cube die)
a D8 (eight-sided die)
a D10 (ten-sided die)
You can also substitute the printable in-game currency tokens (cheese wheels) with every day objects, such as any coins or poker chips, that you may have available, if you want to save on printing (cutting out pages 52 and 53 of the print book).
Game Play and Art Files
In the Game Assets .PDF, you’ll find all the printable cards you need to begin your adventure, including Recruit (Crew) Cards, Item Cards, Event Cards, Captain profiles, and more. Browse the gallery below to sample the in-game card and art files:
You can also view a complete gallery of the Crew cards here - get to know the scrappy Pi-Rats! You’ll be adventuring with!
The Rule Book .PDF includes detailed written instructions, as well as full color illustration and examples of game set-up, icon libraries and their meanings, and common in-game mechanics.
Want to help take Pi-Rats! to the next level?
Right now, we’re just happy to have any friends and family (or friends of friends, or family of family, or family of our friends’ family—err, you get the idea) enjoy the experience we’ve built through Pi-Rats! But we also believe it has the potential to be successfully pitched to a game publishing company in the not-too-distant future.
If you enjoyed Pi-rats! (or even if you didn’t), consider filling out a brief Google survey to let us know what you thought about it (seriously, it won’t take more than two minutes). We’ll use the answers we receive to further tweak the game experience and provide game publishing companies with valuable documentation to prove we’ve gone through all the necessary rounds of beta testing. Every response is anonymous (we need at least ten) - though if you send in proof of a submitted survey to maryjrath@gmail.com, you’ll unlock the print file for the Hidden Rat recruit card (not included in the downloadable file)!
We’ll also love you forever, so, there’s that.
Acknowledgements
A HUGE thanks to Beau Beavers for the incredible illustration art he did for us. Seriously, go check out his portfolio.
Another HUGE thank you to our beta testers, Becca and Malcom Smootz, Liz Cobb, Adam Rollins, Stephanie and James Pearce, and Sarah Rushing, who put up with us being THOSE friends who made everyone play their home made card game on game nights.
Additionally, another shout out to Stephanie Pearce for assisting with the in-game character design!
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