RA is set in the era of Ancient Egypt, where players take on the roles of pharaohs striving to elevate their civilization to greatness. The game is named after Ra, the sun god, who symbolizes power, time, and destiny. Throughout the game, players collect tiles representing various aspects of Egyptian culture – from monuments, Nile floods, gold, and gods, to disasters. All of this unfolds across three historical epochs, reflecting the development of civilization over time.
RA is an auction game with elements of set collection and tactical decision-making. Each player has a limited number of sun disks (numbered tokens) used to bid for tiles. On their turn, a player can:
- draw a tile from the bag and add it to the auction track,
- “invoke Ra” to start an auction,
- or use a god tile to immediately take one tile from the auction track.
When a Ra tile is drawn from the bag, a forced auction is triggered and the time until the end of the epoch shortens. After each epoch, points are scored based on the tiles collected.
The limited number of sun disks means every auction is meaningful and requires thoughtful decisions. Auctions create tension and psychological interplay among players.☀️
