Rap Godz: Living that hip-hop life

Truth be told, it’s been a little difficult being inspired to write while we’ve been on lockdown during the coronavirus pandemic. But in light of recent events and protests erupting across America, it’s important to take a stance. #blacklivesmatter. Period. There is so much racial injustice happening all over — it’s heartbreaking, and serious change needs to happen. We must do better. 

Here in the board gaming community, we can listen, we can educate ourselves, we can speak out against racism and microaggressions, we can create a safe gaming space, and we can amplify black board game designers, artists and creators.

Omari Akil is a cofounder of Board Game Brothas and the lead designer of Rap Godz, a game about becoming a hip-hop artist. In this article written by Omari, he discussed how few black board gamers he encounters in the hobby — and even fewer game designers — and he wanted to change that. 

I first encountered Rap Godz through my partner Chris who received his copy a few months ago. Chris enjoyed playing a demo of it at a local Unpub event in North Carolina in 2018 and ordered the game when it hit Kickstarter. We’ve had so much fun playing it since, often jamming along with one of our rap playlists!

Rap Godz is a 2-4 player game that plays in about 60 minutes. Each player plays as an up-and-coming rapper trying to take over cities, hit career goals and earn the most record-sales plaques through three albums. 

The whole board is laid out like a giant turntable, with crossfader markers indicating which album and track players are on. The entire game is three albums’ worth, with five tracks — or turns — for each album. That’s fifteen turns for everyone, which leaves a short amount of time to go platinum! Painted grooves on the record represent the three resource tracks: swag, skillz and street. 

On a player’s turn, they get a card and play a card. To get a card, they can draw one from the current album deck or discard three cards to grab one of the face-up Come Upz cards. 

Players then play a card from their hand in front of them and create a timeline of their career. Played cards dole out plaques and resources to the player. Some cards though feature a lock and key, and players cannot play that card until they have equal to or more than the number of resources shown in the lock. 

Players can also instead play a Beef card. When they do this, they pick another rapper to start beef with, roll their die and the red die. The other person rolls their die. The player with the highest number on a single die wins the beef. The loser puts the Beef card into their timeline and hands over resources and plaques on the Beef card to the winner. The winner collects a red Beef cube, which can help score an objective at the end of the game. 

As players cross resource thresholds on the record, they collect Pick Upz tokens, which gives resource, beef or card bonuses and can be used for a later time. The goal of the game is to score objectives by collecting Goalz, Citiez (each city has a different objective such as having the most Yellow cards in your timeline) and the most plaques. The player who has the most points after three albums is the Rap God. 

The game has lots of replay value, as the Goalz and Citiez objectives change every game, and the interaction between the players by starting beefs always makes for a fun time. You also have 24 characters — and their distinct abilities and end-game scoring objectives — to choose from, and even Troopers and Cthudus want to be rappers!

The unique theme and components set this game apart. The game comes with a hefty gold medallion to indicate the first player, and I enjoy how the game ramps up with phased in album and Come Upz cards. Giving otherwise regular resource tracks a unique look is pretty creative. I also love and appreciate the diversity of artwork and experiences represented on the game cards. 

One of the biggest things I’ve been an advocate for is representation in the board gaming community. Often, whenever I walk into a room at a game convention, there aren’t many people who look like me, and I want to see more people of color break into and thrive in this hobby I love. And we can do our part by taking action and fostering a more diverse and inviting community.