Winter Rabbit Game Review

 I'm sure they've been around since before I noticed them, but 2025 is definitely the first year I've heard of semi-cooperative worker placement games. I've played two so far, and I'm sure we'll be able to squeeze in another one before the end of the year. The results are mixed so far. Kinfire Council is a much more interesting idea than the game itself, and the same seems to be true of Winter Rabbit.

 Designer William Thompson’s game first caught my eye when it was shortlisted for the 2021 Zenobia Award, which aims to raise the profile of underrepresented game designers. Zenobia is worth following not only for its noble cause, but also because the shortlisted games offer us new settings and themes—real themes, not decorative ones—that don’t usually make it to market. In the case of Winter Rabbit, we find ourselves in a world of Cherokee folklore, where Otter, Deer, Turtle, Bear, Wolf, and Possum prepare for winter.

 The mechanics of placing workers here are not quite like anything I've seen before. The basis of the game is a simple resource conversion: you accumulate various resources, and then spend them on improvements and gaining victory points. The novelty lies in the method itself. Players draw workers from a common bag. You can draw your own worker, but more often it will be someone else's - or that annoying Rabbit. More about him later.

 After drawing a worker, place it face down on any free space on the board. Each of the six sectors of the playing field corresponds to one of the resources. When all the empty spaces in any sector are filled, this resource is produced. The discs are turned over, and if there is no Rabbit there, everyone receives one copy of this resource. The player (or players) whose discs are present receives an additional one resource for each disc. If the Rabbit disc is revealed, he rakes up all the resources for himself and drags them to his hole. Oh, this cunning rabbit!

 The cooperative element of the game comes from the Tasks that players play from their hand at the start of each round. Each Task requires a certain amount of resources to complete and earns points for the player who completes it, but you can't complete your own Tasks. Someone else has to do the work for you. They get points, and you get a small bonus.

 Additionally, each completed Task helps the team prepare for winter. By the end of the fourth round, the team must complete seven Tasks in each of the three categories to survive the winter. If they do, the player with the most points wins. If they don't, you all lose together.

 There are promising elements to the game. I really like the idea of pulling and placing workers from any player. I think it could make a great game, but Winter Rabbit isn't. As with Kinfire Council, the political interaction that the rule encourages never really comes into play. It's enjoyable, but rarely exciting.

 The production and artwork are excellent. I really like the art, especially the creature art, but it's rarely a good sign when the artwork itself is my favorite element of the game. Despite its promising setting and unusual dynamics, Winter Rabbit just can't seem to pull itself together.