How to Play
Rocket Ranchers: Herding Cats in Space!
IMPORTANT: Below is a condensed version of the rules, does not contain everything you need to know, and is based on the prototype – the final rules may change.
Welcome to Planet Binxadinx!
Congratulations! Your colony has been selected for a lucrative profit-sharing opportunity! As part of this partnership, we’ll provide you with a refurbished Personal Levitation Unit (PLU) or “Dogship” to get started. Fly out across the wilderness, collect exotic creatures, and bring them back to your ranch for housing. Unfortunately, there was unavoidable mining accident that woke an unknown creature from hibernation – the Felispateum latimastix, or “Space Cat”. We’d appreciate it if you could help us round them up. Collect enough and we’ll even cover the cost of your liabilities! Normally we don’t accept colonies as new and inexperienced as yours, but we’re making so much revenue that we have the opportunity for uncharted growth! Show us you’re the one we’ve been waiting for! Your potential is unlimited!
Overview
In Rocket Ranchers, you’ve been tasked to collect animals from across the planet with your dogship, while also rangling with Space Cats. Use your dogship deck to collect animals from a 4x4 grid representing the vast wilderness of Planet Binxadinx. Collected animals can be placed in a corral of a matching species, or placed face down to create a new corral. corrals cost a lot of credits (victory points) and housing too many different species will suck away your profits. So, think carefully about which animals you beam up and how many corrals you build. Don’t forget to watch out for Space Cats. They will cling to any animal they’re adjacent to (except for other Space Cats). Collect one or a bunch to score points. Collect none or just a few and you’ll lose points. At the end of the game, you’ll earn Galactic Credits (points) on the species you have a lot of, lose credits for empty corrals, and gain or lose credits for those Space Cats. Advanced rules add special profits and collection rules for each animal. The rancher with the most points wins!
Game Setup
- Give each player a dogship deck in their preferred color (A).
- Shuffle the wilderness deck of animals based on the number of players (see chart below).
- Give each player one face down card from the wilderness deck as their starting corral (B). Do not reveal it.
- Leave room for: additional corrals (C), a floof pile for Space Cats (D), and a dogship discard pile (E)
- Place 16 cards in a 4×4 grid to start the wilderness (F).
- Place the remaining wilderness cards in a deck in an easily accessible area (G).
- Advanced rules: Decide on a spot for a wilderness discard (H) and where the Corporate Assignments will go (I).
- Each player will begin the game with a full hand of cards (their entire dogship deck) (A).
- Choose a first player. They will take the Space Cat Protection Agency Badge (a big responsibility). Play proceeds clockwise around the table for the rest of the game (J).
On Your Turn, choose one:
- Play from your hand. Play a tractor beam card from your hand, and if desired, a special program.
- Reboot. Return your discarded dogship cards to your hand.
Playing from your deck:
Choose a tractor card from your hand to play. Its shape determines what you to collect (whether you want those cards or not). Choose wisely. Until you reboot your ship, you won’t get to use that card again.
Special Programs:
At any time on your turn, you can play a special program card. The base game includes one of these for each player — the Shepherd Program. This allows you the ability to teleport swap two animals of the same biome (suit).
Example
After beaming, do the following:
- Discard the used dogship card into your personal discard pile (A).
- Then, place any captured Space Cats into their floof pile (B). They do not go into corrals.
Next, with each of the remaining animals you beamed, do ONE of the following:
- Place the animal into an occupied corral of the same species (C).
- Place the animal into an empty corral, so long as there isn’t one of that species already (D).
- Play the card face down to make a new corral(E). You may create multiple corrals and place animals into newly created corrals on the same turn. Space Cats may not be converted into corrals (sorry).
Rebooting your DOGship:
After playing a tractor beam card, you’ll have fewer cards, in hand, to choose from. If you want to return those cards to your hand, you’ll need to REBOOT. You can do this with a Manual or Automatic reboot.
Manual Reboot
So long as you have at least 2 tractor beam cards in your discard pile, you can skip your turn to reboot your dogship, returning all dogship cards to your hand. Sometimes this can be helpful to avoid collecting for a round. Ranchers violating the 2-card minimum will have their sponsorship revoked and placed on airlock cleaning duty.
Automatic Reboot
If, at the end of your turn, you’ve used all four of your tractor beam cards, your ship will automatically reboot (meaning you won't need to skip your turn). When you reboot, return all Dogship cards to your hand, including special programs.
End OF Turn/Game:
Once you've either played a tractor card (and/or any special program) or chosen to reboot -- you'll refill the wilderness grid.
If the wilderness pile is empty at any time, this signals the end of the game, and players finish out the round based on who was the first player (whoever had the special agent card). At this point, you may be required to play over empty spaces in the wilderness, however you must still stay within the original 4x4 grid.
Scoring
Now it’s time to see how you did and if you’re getting that sponsorship [pending board approval]. The person with the most Galactic Credits (points) will be the winner! If there is a tie, the player with the most Space Cats is declared the victor.
CALCULATING YOUR EARNINGS:
Use the Credit Pay Per Species card and the Species X Space Cat card to calculate how many credits you earned.
Credits are based on how many of each species you were able to collect, not how many different types of species. corrals are expensive to run, so the fewer you have the better, and Moros Heavy won’t cover the cost of maintenance.
Space Cats on the other hand become increasingly difficult to house. Their static charge (which helps them cling to animals) runs havoc on your electrical grid. However, if you collect enough, Moros Heavy Industries will likely provide you with everything you need for your new Space Cat sanctuary.
At the end of the game, James scores is as follows:
- Capiwata: 0
- Eleplants: 27
- Canis: 0
- Bakos: 4
- Plushies: 0
- Kows: 0
- Empty Corral -6
- Space Cats: -8
James ends the game with a final score of : 17 credits (points). What could he have done differently? Next time, perhaps he should to get more Space Cats to turn things positive, or collect more of each species rather than a variety of them.
Advanced Rules
Corporate Assignments
MINI EXPANSION
Randomly select three assignments and place them face-up near the wilderness for all to see. Score these first (in species order), then score the other animals and space cats as normal.
These assignments replace the normal scoring for those animals and add a ton of variability and replay to this game. Also, it'll increase the strategy and difficulty of the game.
Once you become experienced with these assignments, you can be brave and play with all of them at once!
Credits
- Game Design: David Bock
- Graphic Design and Creative Director: David Bock
- Illustration: Cam Kendell
- Game Development: Cathy Bock
- Narrative and Copy Edits: Cathy Bock
- Lead Fun Tester: Ezra Bock
- Special Thanks: Andrew Gerlicher, Jeff Beck, Mike Young, Matt Paquette, Pat Ash, Jane Chung Hoffacker, Kevin Wilson, Ross Thompson, Enrico Spada, Brian Favia, Eric Dougherty, David Lockwood, the awesome gamers at our Elgin IL Game Night at Bennigan’s, Gaming Hoopla, Board Game Spotlight, our playtesters, and Lucky Duck Games.
- Follow us: @binxadinxgames (Instagram/Twitter/Facebook)
- Our website: www.binxadinx.com