Hare and Tortoise
Hare and Tortoise is a
German-style board game designed by
David Parlett in
1974 and first published by
Intellect Games. In
1978 it was released by
Ravensburger in
Germany, where the game became a huge hit. It has since sold some 2 million units in at least ten languages, including two known pirated editions. The current edition is published by
Rio Grande Games (United States),
Abacus Spiele (Germany), and
The Board Game Company (UK).
The game is based on
Aesop's fable "
The Tortoise and the Hare", in which the
hare and
tortoise decide to race. The tortoise wins the race by cunning while the hare fails because he overestimates himself and takes a nap during the race. The moral of the story is "slow and steady wins the race" which is incorporated in the game mechanic.
In Germany, there is another fable by a similar name,
Hase und Igel (Hare and hedgehog), made popular by the
Brothers Grimm, in which the hedgehog wins because his wife is at the finish line, and the hare mistakes her for his race opponent.
The game used a new (
as of 1974) game mechanic. Until then movement of game pieces was largely determined by the roll of
dice. In Hare and Tortoise players pay carrots (the currency in the game) to move forward. The more squares the player wants to advance, the more carrots the player is to pay. The cost to advance increases according to the price of the previous square plus the target square:
* 1 square = 1 carrot
* 2 squares = price of 1 square + 2 = 3 carrots
* 3 squares = price of 2 squares + 3 = 6 carrots
* 4 squares = price of 3 squares + 4 = 10 carrots
* and so on...
Players can earn carrots in various ways - most notably by moving backwards to designated squares (10 carrots per square). This game mechanic creates an interesting and dynamic race usually with no clear winner until the very end.The players start the game with 65 carrots.The gameboard features 65 squares. There are no generic squares instead the board is divided in several types of squares such as hare (draw a luck card), carrots (get extra carrots for each turn skipped) etc.
The factor of luck can be eliminated completely from the game by agreement between the players not to land on 'hare' squares.
In 1978, the game became the first winner of the now widely recognized
Spiel des Jahres award. The Dutch translation won the "Speelgoed van het jaar" (Toy of the Year) award in
1979 when it was released.
*
Hare and Tortoise on the designer's website
