''Ra'' is a

board game Board games are tabletop games that typically use . These pieces are moved or placed on a pre-marked board (playing surface) and often include elements of table, card, role-playing, and miniatures games as well. Many board games feature a comp ...

for two to five players designed by

Reiner Knizia Reiner may refer to: *Reiner (crater), a crater on the Moon, named after Vincentio Reiner *Reiner Braun, a fictional List_of_Attack_on_Titan_characters, character in the anime/manga series ''Attack on Titan'' People with the given name Reiner *Rein ...

and themed around Ra, the

sun-god A solar deity or sun deity is a deity who represents the Sun, or an aspect of it. Such deities are usually associated with power and strength. Solar deities and Sun worship can be found throughout most of recorded history in various forms. The ...

of Heliopolis in ancient Egyptian culture. It is one of three auction games designed by Knizia, the others being ''

Medici The House of Medici ( , ) was an Italian banking family and political dynasty that first began to gather prominence under Cosimo de' Medici, in the Republic of Florence during the first half of the 15th century. The family originated in the Muge ...

'' and ''

Modern Art Modern art includes artistic work produced during the period extending roughly from the 1860s to the 1970s, and denotes the styles and philosophies of the art produced during that era. The term is usually associated with art in which the tradi ...

''. Originally published in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

, it was republished in an

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the is ...

translation by

Rio Grande Games Rio Grande Games is a board game publisher based in Placitas, New Mexico. The company primarily imports and localizes foreign language German-style board games. History In 1995, Jay Tummelson began working for Mayfair Games. At that time, ...

. Subsequent English language editions have been published by

Überplay Überplay Entertainment was a board game publishing company located in St. George, Utah, and was founded by Jeremy Young and Matt Molen in 2003. As of April 2008, it had ceased operations. The company held three separate brands: Überplay prov ...

and again by

. The last of these increased the number of players from the original 3-5 to 2-5, but otherwise all editions have used the same rules. ''Ra'' won the 2000

International Gamers Award The International Gamers Awards is an award for strategy board games and historical simulation games. Per their website, the IGAs ''were created to recognize outstanding games and designers, as well as the companies that publish them. The awards ...

and placed 2nd in the 1999

Deutscher Spiele Preis __NOTOC__ The Deutscher Spielepreis (, ''German Game Prize'') is an important award for boardgames. It was started in 1990 by the German magazine ''Die Pöppel-Revue'', which collects votes from the industry's stores, magazines, professionals ...

Gameplay

''Ra'' is an auction game, in which the players compete for the same resources. The game is played in three rounds, called Epochs, reflecting the history of ancient Egypt. Players use their sun tokens to bid against each other on auctions for tiles. At the end of an epoch, points will be scored for the number and types of tiles a player managed to win. The price of the tiles is determined by the players bidding for them, and values can shift rapidly.Rules quick summary

PDF Portable Document Format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems. ...

by Michael Weston on

BoardGameGeek BoardGameGeek (BGG) is an online forum for board gaming hobbyists and a game database that holds reviews, images and videos for over 125,600 different tabletop games, including European-style board games, wargames, and card games. In addition to ...

Players are faced with a constant balance between "what should be done eventually" and "what can actually be done now", which is a hallmark of many of Knizia's games, and of

German-style board games A Eurogame, also called a German-style board game, German game, or Euro-style game, (generally just referred to as board games in Europe) is a class of tabletop games that generally has indirect player interaction and abstract physical componen ...

in general.

History

''Ra'' was published in 1999 by Alea in

. In an interview with Funagain Games,Interviews with Reiner Knizia and Jay Tummelson
Funagain Games, 1999 Knizia explains how he created the game : "''Ra'' actually has a good story behind it; it was the first game I did after my retirement. Two or three weeks after my retirement I said, 'Okay, now let's get started.' That's the time, when I do a big game, that the world around me stops. I concentrate on this game and nothing else. And since I had more time, this concentration became even more extreme. For four to six weeks I did nothing but work on this game. " Almost immediately the game was picked up for distribution and English translation by

. Rio Grande owner Jay Tummelson explains how he chose ''Ra'' for distribution so early in its life: "Games I like are likely to be liked by others. With ''Ra'', I saw it at

Essen Essen (; Latin: ''Assindia'') is the central and, after Dortmund, second-largest city of the Ruhr, the largest urban area in Germany. Its population of makes it the fourth-largest city of North Rhine-Westphalia after Cologne, Düsseldorf and D ...

last year and decided I would like to do it in English. I approached Alea and offered to do it. We negotiated and I did it. I try to get involved earlier in the process…. I am working with some companies on games they are considering for next year, but have not decided on final theme or look."

999 Games 999 or triple nine most often refers to: * 999 (emergency telephone number), a telephone number for the emergency services in several countries * 999 (number), an integer * AD 999, a year * 999 BC, a year Books * ''999'' (anthology) or ''999: ...

published a

Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...

edition of ''Ra'' in the

Netherlands ) , anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau") , image_map = , map_caption = , subdivision_type = Sovereign state , subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands , established_title = Before independence , established_date = Spanish Netherl ...

in 2000. Besides these three officially published language translations, fans of the game have translated the rules into Hungarian,

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

, and French. All of these translations, along with reviews, photos, and discussions about the game can be found on

.com, a board game database and fan community. ''Ra'' quickly sold out, and was out of print for several years. In October 2005

reprinted the English version. The Überplay edition has minor differences from earlier editions: slightly larger tiles, a slightly larger board, a cloth sack to pull the tiles from, a smaller box (thanks to the board being quad-fold), a scoring summary printed on the board, and marks on tiles to indicate which are kept at the end of a round. In 2005 Knizia, working with

Michael Menzel Michael Menzel is a prolific game artist and occasional game designer from Germany. As the designer of ''Legends of Andor'', he won the Kennerspiel award. Menzel is credited as an artist for over 300 board games or game items. He is known for cr ...

, also designed a new game called ''Razzia'', which is the basic game of ''Ra'' with a

mafia "Mafia" is an informal term that is used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the original “Mafia”, the Sicilian Mafia and Italian Mafia. The central activity of such an organization would be the arbitration of d ...

theme. A third edition of ''Ra'' was published by

in 2009. This increased the range of the number of players to 2-5 from the 3-5 of earlier editions.

Reception

A review in

Ars Technica ''Ars Technica'' is a website covering news and opinions in technology, science, politics, and society, created by Ken Fisher and Jon Stokes in 1998. It publishes news, reviews, and guides on issues such as computer hardware and software, sci ...

stated that Ra "might just be the best auction game".

References

External links

Alea's official ''Ra'' site
*{{bgg, 12, ''Ra'' Board games introduced in 1999 Auction board games Board games about history Reiner Knizia games Alea games Rio Grande Games games