Le Docte Rat (1988)

A trivia game that has its theme based on various educational stages. The board is divided in three parts: Chemin des écoliers (pupil's path), Collège Saint-Lauréat (St. Winning college) and Université Gens-Brillants (Bright-People university). This game is full of humor and puns (the previous name list is a good example) but is strongly aimed at the Québec (Canada) French speaking population. It is, in fact, a very popular game in this region. So popular that it spawned two extensions to the game and a kid version : L'Apprenti Docte Rat.

There are four question categories: Petite Colle (Little Poser) the easy one where the questions are worth 5 points, Bon Mot (Good Word) the vocabulary category that can give you 5 or 10 points, Érudition contains harder questions worth 10 points and, finally, Mini-Test where questions are usually divided into three sub-questions totalling 15 points.

The object of the game is to be the first to finish the three board stages. You have to collect 25 points to finish the first part. Starting again from scratch, you need 50 points to complete the second level (college). Again starting from zero, you have to accumulate 75 points to win the third stage and the game. This allows you to proudly wear the Docte Rat badge included in the box.

The name of the game is itself a pun. Docte is the french word for professorial and Rat... well, a rat is rat, even in french! When you utter the game's name, it sounds like Doctorat which is the french word for doctorate (PhD); arguably what you're supposed to get (or already have?!) if you win this game.