Rat Race: From Zero To CEO - A chaotic office party game

Community Challenge❤️

Stretch Goals🎉

Why people start yelling

How to play

If you want to learn how to play better in depth, we’ve left you this video:

What's in the box

Rewards

Add-ons

Shipping & Estimated Timeline

Rat Race: From Zero To CEO began when Jaime challenged Luis to think of a game after getting into board games. The first vague concept was something called “King of the Homeless” and it included the idea of using Rock, Paper, Scissors as a core mechanic. After various iterations and lots of brainstorming sessions, the idea evolved into what it is today: rats in suits fighting their way to the top of the corporate world.

First attempt and rule changes

Our first challenge came when we had to show the game to our friends (shoutout to Despacitos, love you guys! ❤️). In that first playthrough, the rules were a bit different, for example, every time you lost a combat, you went backwards. Fun, yes, but it made every game last waaaay longer, and that is one of the main things we did not want.

A few cards had to be changed or even discarded, but many great ideas came from our friends and their suggestions.

So, in a way, this game is as much theirs as it is ours.

(Yeah, no way. They just played a couple of times and gave some comments.)

Designing the cards

This was the next big challenge, as we are neither designers nor artists. But, through sheer force of will and the desire to actually finish a project we had started, we got to work. These are some of the designs we worked on and passed on. Oh, and yes, the texts here are in Spanish, because we are Spanish, but the final game will be available in both English and Spanish, hopefully even more languages if this Kickstarter works out well enough.

The very first design we did, plain, simple and effective. Enough for our first playthroughs.

Our first Memo and Directive cards. Memo hasn’t changed much, the idea of making it an email was and still is pretty cool.

The “Chat card”, better idea than execution I must say. My mom couldn’t, for the life of her, see that we were trying to reference Teams, Meet, and all that stuff (and she works with those!).

And finally, the last failed attempt. And yes, I know what you guys are thinking, “isn’t that the template you guys are using now?”. And the answer is yes, basically, except for the freaking BLEED and MARGINS. Oh my god, we almost had a meltdown because of that. Don't machines cut the cards? Why do I have to leave at least 3 mm for the bleed? It doesn’t sound like a lot, but IT IS.

Ahem, sorry about that, all better now.

But yeah, you can see it’s been a journey, and this was just one of the challenges.

The drawings

Definitely, by far, the most challenging aspect of making the game. You have to understand, we are not artists. We’ve always been science guys, and art is obviously a huge part of any board game. So we’ve spent LONG hours drawing. We started working with an artist (great guy, super talented) but due to creative differences (and the fact that we don’t really have a lot of money), it turned into a bit of a leap of faith.

Anyway, after a lot of thought, and since we’re pretty crazy and constantly imagine our rats doing weird stuff, we decided to draw them ourselves. And… well, see for yourselves:

I mean, look at the fat cat 🤣🤣🤣.

And yeah, some of these are not that bad, but they are not good either.

Still, we’re really proud of our little sicko rats and how far they’ve come, and proud of ourselves, too. No one’s gonna call us to draw the next Batman issue or the next Kimetsu movie, but we’ve definitely become pretty good at drawing our rats.

And honestly, that’s something to be proud of… I guess.

Help us make this game possible

We started Rat Race: From Zero to CEO as a small, ridiculous idea between two friends, and it’s now become something we’re truly proud of.

We’ve poured countless hours, late nights, and questionable sanity into building a game that mocks the madness of the corporate world.

Now, we want to share it with you and Kickstarter is the fastest way for us to get Rat Race into your hands and grow it with your feedback, together, as a community.

So, if you’ve ever wanted to climb the corporate ladder without the anxiety, HR meetings, and unpaid overtime… please back this project and help us build this game.

With love (and mild office trauma),

– The Rat Race: From Zero to CEO Team (Jaime & Luis)

Special Thanks

(This part is gonna be in Spanish, sorry everyone)

Muchas gracias a todos los que nos habéis ayudado a crear este proyecto, ya sea jugando, dándonos ideas o trabajando de verdad con nosotros.

Especial gracias a Jaime Herrero (@solidjaime) por su increíble trabajo como Diseñador Gráfico, por aportar sus ideas y opiniones y por creer en nosotros.

Gracias a Alba(@albagonzalezrobles)  por las increíbles fotos del prototipo. Gracias a tu trabajo hemos podido enseñar el proyecto con la calidad y el cariño que merece.

Gracias a mi hermano Javi por todo el cariño, el apoyo y las opiniones que nos has dado, sin ti este juego no hubiese sido ni la mitad de lo que es.

Gracias a mi hermana Celia por ser siempre crítica cuando hacía falta, por ayudarnos a ver lo que podíamos mejorar y por empujarnos a hacer el juego un poco mejor en cada versión.

Gracias a vosotros, Despacitos (de nuevo), por ayudarnos a probar nuestro juego, darnos sugerencias y creer en nosotros.

Gracias a "Ala bim ala bam ala bim bom bam", por probar el juego estando de vacaciones.

Gracias también a mis primos Mario y Jorge y tambien a mis primas Marina,Sandra y Marta por jugar y darnos vuestras opiniones.Y, por supuesto, a nuestros amigos Javi, Víctor, Rodri, Mario, Pablo y Dani por estar desde el minuto uno y atreverse a salir en el vídeo

Gracias a Nano y Torres por esas noches de testeo y por ayudarnos a mejorar el juego con cada partida.

Gracias Cachiporris tambien por probar el juego, en especial a Lorena por su feedback de las normas y a Raquel por la idea de las cartas chuletas.

Gracias a Nerea y Elena por jugar con nosotros y sobre todo por echarnos una mano con el marketing, que es probablemente lo que menos nos ha gustado de todo esto.

Gracias a ti también, Paula, por apoyarme, escuchar mis quejas sobre dibujar ratas y por creer en mi.

Y sobre todo a Estefanía, que me ha acompañado durante todo este proceso. Puede que haya tenido que aguantar demasiadas ratas, pero siempre ha estado ahí apoyándome, ayudándome y creyendo en este proyecto incluso cuando era solo una idea.

Y por último, y los más importantes, gracias a nuestros padres, por estar siempre ahí, apoyándonos en todo momento, confiando en nosotros incluso cuando no veían claro el camino, y ayudándonos a llevar este proyecto hasta el final.

Muchas gracias a todos ❤️