Juggling the Hare

Hare and Tortoise is an old game - from 1973 to be precise, and it won the inaugeral Spiel des Jahres in 1979.

Joe had seen it in a few charity shops but not been moved to pick it up for a few pennies; whereas I, being perhaps less circumspect in my impulses, purchased an old copy through ebay for a tenner.

I initially read about the game on Mind Sports which seemed to rate it highly, albeit from the perspective of a brainiac rather than your average gamer. Compared to something like Brass, or even Tinner's Trail, it's pretty straightforward, but back in '73 it must have seemed way ahead of its time, foregoing dice in favour of a series of mental arithmetic involving carrots and lettuces.

So after a morning of writing Andrew and I thought we'd give it a go. I'll be honest, I did not think it would have aged well and was slightly trepidatious about a game that made calculus its central mechanic - not my strong suit. But I was pleasantly surprised.

this copy is in the earth's orbit

In the game you represent both the tortoise and the hare - of your own colour - trying to beat everybody else's pieces as you race - sometimes rapidly, sometimes slowly, sometimes backwards - around an old fashioned roll-and-move track. Except there's no rolling. Instead your movement is fuelled by how many carrots you have: small moves are relatively cheap but as you push up past the 3 or 4 squares mark the carrot cost goes up exponentially.

So to balance this you need to get more carrots - which is done by moving backwards. There are also some more risky ways of picking up carrots, and there's a potential spanner in the works in the shape of the Hare square - land on one of these and you 'Jug the Hare' which is a bit of pot luck. The card might work for you or against you, depending on both the number on the hare card and your position in the race. You also have some lettuces you need to get shot of before you can finish the race!

they're off!

With two players both actually have two racers played alternately as well, so there was the extra challenge of remembering the turn order; which we thankfully managed with minimum confusion.

For the game itself - well, I think Andrew would be first to admit fate smiled on him with his hare-jugging antics; they were beneficial almost every single time whereas when I gambled the hare scratched my arms and shat on my hands, making me move back or miss turns.

Andrew throwing his carrots around, as usual

But despite that I think Andrew would have won, as he managed his carrots in slow-and-steady fashion whereas I hit upon a tactic of moving one piece back (to pick up carrots) and the other forward. Which seemed viable until I realised I still had 4 lettuces to be shot of and I was miles from the finish line - a late sprint put on by my green piece was merely for pride as Andrew's purple (stop it!) sailed over the line.

Purple wins with Green 9 squares back, dragging groceries

It's not a 'modern' classic, but you can see the links between old world gaming and new in Hare and Tortoise. And though it could be played very, very thoughtfully - and hence slowly - two things stop it being too AP-inclined - firstly the hare, and secondly player positions, which affect both how many carrots you might pick up AND what you can do on your turn, as no two pieces may be on the same square at the same time.

So while I don't foresee this as a Tuesday night staple, it was actually quite fun - an uncanny marriage of luck and strategy that does not outstay its welcome (we took about 35 minutes to play).

Andrew and I have decided to work through the Spiel des Jahres winners chronologically, so as soon as I get a copy of Rummiikub I'll be in touch...