We proudly announce Rakab, the Persian Edition of Condottiere, an acclaimed area control game by Dominique Ehrhard, to be released this month.
In Rakab, 2 to 6 players compete to control areas on the map by participating in several battles. In each match, players strengthen their army by playing soldier cards and scheming other players with modifiers cards. The player who captures three adjacent areas or five areas on the map wins the game.
The story of Rakab started in the summer of 2018 with the email I sent to Dominique Erhard, the designer of the original title, to ask him about acquiring the right to the Persian edition. His response was unbelievable: “My wife and I are coming to Iran for the summer holidays!”. Surprised by this fortune cookie, I managed to meet them on their arrival in Shiraz. We spend a day together walking in Shiraz’s beautiful streets and gardens, talking about literature, culture, and gaming in France and Iran.
It took a while, and it was almost late in the winter that I started to prepare for the game’s pre-production phase. I wanted to change the game world from Renaissance Italy to time and place in Iran in the first step. After a bit of research, I chose the vast plains and green mountains of Lorestan (west of Iran). So I decided to leave the illustration to the mighty hands of Mohammad Noureddine, whose art style and color palette I always admired.
I chose Rakab as the game’s title, which means to deceive and bluff in Persian, and is more close to the feeling and experience of the game because this game is more about mind-reading and the ability to bluff and challenge others than strategy.
Rakab is a kind of game to trap and mislead opponents. This game is about the ambush and waiting for the right moment to hunt, and when that moment comes, you have to take risks and be provocative. Any doubts will alert the opponents, and then bluffs and threats will no longer be effective. Rekab is a hidden game with hidden magic inside, formed in the space above the table and between the players. The same magic that makes us fall in love with this hobby.