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Rabbits eh? Fluffy little, cotton tailed, twitchy nosed, carrot snuffling bundles of cuteness! As a kid I had a jet black pet rabbit (he was called Blackie… because I was an original and imaginative child…) who was a little bit wild. The main reason for this was because he actually was a wild rabbit that someone had given us – the 80s were crazy! Sadly Blackie was not an animal who wanted to be petted, in fact he once bit my dad’s bottom when he leant on his cage. Seven year old me thought this was hilarious and wrote about it in school, clearly 37 years later not a lot has changed as here I am still writing about it!
Apart from in the wild or in pet shops, you also used to find rabbits living in top hats of magicians, not something you see as often these days, no doubt for animal safety etc. Well in Magic Rabbit you and any fellow players are attempting to help a magician who has nine rabbits running amok backstage… kind of makes sense about the animal safety – nine rabbits seems irresponsible!
Ever the Hop-timist..
To succeed at Magic Rabbit you and your counterparts will need to work together to match nine numbered rabbits with their corresponding numbered hats, which sounds soo much simpler than it actually is. To set up you’ll shuffle the rabbits and place them randomly face down in a row, then you’ll do the same with the hats but place them face up, one on top of each rabbit. Each player will perform an action on their turn, they will either look at a rabbit under a hat, swap two hats or swap two piles (the rabbit and the hat) Because not only do you have to match each rabbit to its hat, you also need to put them all in numerical order.
Remember that reckless magician who owns this nonet of bunnies? Turns out he also owns several doves too, and they are on the loose. Depending on your player count you’ll have various numbers of Doves perched atop the hats, if a bird is on a hat, you can’t do any of the actions for that stack.
Frustrated yet? Well what do you expect there's birds and bunnies on the loose!
Luckily for you, after you have performed any available actions you can choose to move a dove at the end of your turn, allowing you access to whatever is underneath… unless one of your team mates moves it back before your next turn. Oh by the way, curtain goes up for the magic show in two and a half minutes so you better get a wriggle on because that’s all the time you have to sort out those unruly animals.
How’s that anxiety doing?
A hare raising performance
So if you’re not already having nightmares at the thought of attempting to sort out the feathered and furred creatures in silence (I did mention you can’t talk to you team mates didn’t I?) then perhaps you’re ready to up the challenge.
Within Magic Rabbit there are three envelopes, each containing more variations to the game, each envelope increasing in difficulty. In all there are 11 new twists for you to add in, with things like a bad kitty who wants to eat the doves so you must keep them apart, or the annoying bird who must be placed on top of a hat if you just looked at the rabbit beneath it. Do not make the mistake we did of opening envelope one and introducing all four new rules simultaneously, you will lose friends.
The intention is to only include one additional rule at a time, well until you get to envelope three that is…
Did that vein on the side of your head always throb like that?
I’ll stop rabbiting on…
Magic Rabbit is a coffee break game by Lumberjack, and with a timescale of two and a half minutes you’ll not only be able to fit more than one game into your break, you’ll want to in an attempt to coral those feisty rabbits! A devilishly simple concept really well executed with good quality components and excellent illustrations.
Not only do you need to have a fantastic memory to track what’s gone where, you’ll also need to be intuitive to your fellow players and do everything without hesitation as those seconds tick on ever quicker.
Before you know it you’ll be staring down your allies giving them your best ‘what did you do that for!’ look, whilst they defiantly place tiles down with a heavy hand to insinuate ‘Leave. That. There.’ Then inevitably someone will hover too long on their turn, flapping their hands in frustration while they attempt to figure out which action they should take all while the sand falls away in the timer. Before you know it you’re all staring at each other with a puzzled look of ‘well that’s mucked things up’.
It’s utterly brilliant.
Worried you’ll end up with no friends if you play this? Don’t worry it can totally be played solo. But before you think this will be easier as you and you alone are in control, you’ll not be far into envelope one before you’re falling out with yourself!