Once you get a full 6 player game going that is gonna be much, much more difficult. Player interaction is SO sly in this game! As I kind of touched on above, you can manipulate the tableau state to really screw over your opponents…BUT….you never REALLY know just what animals they are trying to score do you? I mean, yeah you can try and keep tabs on what they pluck from the tableau to keep track but that really only works on the lower player counts. Super easy to pick up and play with these rules. The rule book is little more than a slip of paper and based on the slim amount of rules in the game, it works! It clearly explains the two actions you can take with picture examples and on the flip side it has a nice explanation of each species scoring abilities. Of course that doesn’t really lessen this game by any means, in fact, it kind of excites me that other games using this formula might be made. But even with that I sit back and think that you could really just add ANY theme to this game play and it would work just fine. Yes, we have animals and I like how the name of the game is cleverly intertwined and YES, the scoring has a bit of theme embedded in it (lovebirds score by being paired up etc).
The theme on the other hand is lacking any real depth.
The colors are represented fantastically on the cards to not only differentiate them from each other but also give the game a kind of relaxing feel when playing it. Visually the game looks excellent with each different animal species having its own artwork. Overall I am highly impressed with the box and insert, it just works so well! Inside the box there is a pretty generic insert that is split down the middle so you can split the decks up but also has a nice gap in between to store the tokens so you won’t need to use any baggies. It has a magnetized lid that has this very satisfactory SNAP sound when the lid closes. I love the little box! This thing is super small and very easily fits into those extra gaps you may have in your Kallax shelves or book case. The mountain tokens are pretty standard cardboard, a little thin but to be honest you only use these to mark which animals have been played so they work fine. A little slick but they also have a good thickness to them so as not to warp and bend easily. That said, the cards are of a fine quality. There isn’t a game board to speak of as the entire game is comprised of cards and a few tokens. Whoever ends up with the most points wins! This will go around and around until each player has run out of cards in their hand, all five or 6 of them and then you will score. By placing certain animals down you can help yourself out by increasing the value of animals and if you are extra clever you can also figure out ways to deny your opponents points from their animal cards they might be trying to score on. When you pluck a card from the tableau you are not only maximizing your chance to score on the animal plucked BUT also the card you play from your hand to take its place is critical. This placed card will then get a mountain token placed on it showing that it CANNOT be plucked again. On your turn you will either play an animal card that is in your hand face down in front of you OR pluck an animal card from the tableau on the table to place face down in front of you, then replacing that freshly plucked card with one from your hand.
After you have a varying sized tableau of random animal cards displayed on the table before you, each player will be dealt a hand of six cards (five in a six player game). This game is the epitome of a simple strategic card game and one that will having you uttering, “whaaaaa?!” after you play your first game. Nothing too fancy or complicated and certainly nothing that would burn my brain. I’ll be honest, before I played this game I was fully expecting a super simple card drafting style game with animals.
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