Doug Adams writes about the game:

Hase & Igel is one of the classic 'gamers' games that has appeared in the past 20 years and has been published as Hare & Tortoise in English. The game is a race game, but not between a hare and a tortoise, as you may think. Instead, this is a race against the other players, in which you can move rapidly forward like the hare, or very slowly forwards like the tortoise.

The components are very nice, dominated by a large playing board which features a very green and lush countryside as a backdrop. A race track of 64 spaces is printed over the board. Each space contains a symbol, which dictates what happens if you land there.

Six wooden disks serve as playing pieces, with a hare and hedgehog printed on one side, the other side blank. Finally, there are 3 decks of cards, the carrot deck, the lettuce deck, and the hare deck. The carrot deck consists of carrots in various denominations, ranging from 60 down to 1. These are separated by denomination and put in their appropriate spaces on the game board, called the "carrot patch". The lettuce deck is simply identical lettuce cards, which players must discard before before they are allowed to finish the game. The cards in the hare deck are random events that occur if a player lands on a hare space. These are shuffled and placed on the board, face down.

The aim of the game is to be the first to finish the race, at the far end of the track, along the way dropping off 3 lettuces. This isn't easy, as you can only move forwards by 'chewing carrots', and you can only drop lettuces in certain areas of the board.

Carrots are the fuel that drives your playing piece, and the further you want to go, the more expensive it gets. For example, to move 1 space forwards costs 1 carrot, but to move 2 spaces forwards it costs 3 carrots (1 + 2). Following this on, you can see that 3 spaces will be 6 carrots, 4 will be 10 carrots, 5 will be 15 and so on. The further you want to go forwards, the less economical it gets. At the start of the game you are given carrots to get you moving (68 carrots in a 3 or 4 player game, 98 in a 2, 5 or 6 player game). This will get you going, but it won't be long before you going to want more carrots. You are also given 3 lettuce cards, which you must discard during the game (you can' t win if you still hold these cards). It may be a good idea at this stage to describe the various spaces on the board and what happens there:

• Hare: If your piece lands on a Hare space, you must draw a hare card and follow the instructions. It may be something nice like discard a lettuce or something nasty like a move backwards. The hare cards are the only random element present in the game, and the hare spaces can be avoided. I've even played a game where the cards were not used at all, it's your call.

• Lettuce: These are popular as when you land on a lettuce space you are allowed to discard a Lettuce card. However, you must miss a turn to do tis, but the good news is you gain a number of carrots equal to 10 times your position in the race.

• 1,5,6: These spaces are special carrot spaces. If you land here you do nothing until your next turn. If, on your next turn, you are in 1st, 5th or 6th position, you gain 10, 50 or 60 carrots respectively. The other players have a chance to deny this to you by altering the current positions before your next turn!

• 3 or 4: Similar to the 1/5/6 space, if you land on a 3 or a 4 space, next turn you will gain 30 or 40 carrots if you are in 3rd or 4th position, respectively.

• Carrot: If you land on a carrot, you may on your next turn choose not to move and gain or lose 10 carrots.

• Hedgehog: These spaces are interesting in that you are not allowed to move fowards onto one, you only move backwards to them. On a turn you are allowed to move backwards to the previously unoccupied hedgehog space, which gains you 10 carrots for each space moved past. This is a nice source of carrots, and moving backwards to a hedgehog costs nothing!

Copyright © 2006 Frank Schulte-Kulkmann, Essen, Germany