RAT TRASH PARTY

RAT TRASH PARTY is a board game for 3-4 players. Print out the rules, board, and pieces; supply your own dice and garbage. Players compete to be the first RAT to the PARTY with three pieces of TRASH on their heads. Other players can steal your trash, switch places with you, or impede your progress in other ways, like sending you to the BABY ZONE. Artists' Statement: Rat Trash Party is a game about garbage, reclamation, novel ecosystems, and adaptation in a world made possible by the stenchy waste streams of capitalism. It's also about friendship, honour, and luck. We hauled a barely-playable 1970s board game out of the trash, and started playing around with the rules. We kept asking: what could we change to make this more fun? Could we tie this boring thing into knots until it reflected the things we care about? Repeated rounds of hacking and playtesting eventually led us to a totally new game. Every time we play it reminds us that new ways of connecting and interacting with the world can be scavenged out of the physical and cultural detritus that disposability culture can't help but spit out. The Mouse's dictation of art and culture can be spit up. The grip of rationalization and optimization that board games normally demand can be shrugged off. We invite you to scrounge and share with the frenzied enthusiasm of rats. Alex Roberts is a tabletop and live-action game designer whose work focuses on interpersonal complexity and mechanical elegance. She is best known for her story games Star Crossed and For the Queen, and also does consulting, game criticism, and journalism, including the acclaimed interview podcast Backstory. Dana Johnson is a godless queer mutt who eats from the dumpster and makes art out of trash. Their paintings and found-object sculpture were most recently featured in the exhibition Wasteland: A Climate-Anxiety Haunted House. It has since been demolished.