(Part 1)
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1945845#1945845

(Part 2)
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/article/1959845#1959845



We love this game

As the subject suggests this is the third of a series of reviews of games that I can get the family to play while on holiday. As in parts 1 & 2 I am focusing on why this game is IMHO the perfect filler for family fun on holiday


courtesy of Ketty Galleguillos Moller


Components

A deck of 60 cards consisting of a main picture of an animal and also showing the other animals that can eat beat that particular animal.


courtesy of Ender Wiggins

as in the image above that shows an elephant card that can only be beaten by a mouse and a mouse card that can be beaten by lots of other animals.

Nothing else is needed save pen & paper if you are keeping score, (as a family we prefer to just see who won, and lost each game).

How to Play

To start the game deal out the cards until the deck is exhausted, depending on the no. of players this might leave one or more players with extra cards. If this bothers your group then just keep the excess cards out of that game - this introduces an extra element of uncertainty into the game, as the no. of animals of each type is not known. (In the full deck there are five each of eleven types of animals plus four mosquitoes and a joker.

Basically you are trying to get rid of your cards before anyone else.

How do you do this?

The starting player discards one or more animals from their hand; if you want to discard more than one card then they must be of the same animal, two hedgehogs or three seals for example.

The next player has three choices:

discard the same no. of cards but using an animal that can beat the previous animal(s) played; a mouse to beat an elephant or two foxes to beat two hedgehogs.

discard one more of the same animal; three polar bears to beat two polar bears.

pass if you cannot beat the previous players animal(s) (Although not in the rules we have sometimes allowed bluffing as a variation).

players keep discarding cards until on a players turn his discard is the best on the table (everybody else has passed). That player then starts again by discarding one or more animal cards from his hand.

There are (of course) a couple of wrinkles to this basic mechanism. The mosquito can masquerade as an elephant and the joker can be used as any animal you like (NB It can't be played on its own).

Keep going until only one player has any cards left in their hand LOSER

In the official rules players hold onto the cards that they have won for scoring purposes. They may also form teams in subsequent games. Other reviews have covered these points very well so I am not going to cover them in this review.

We prefer to play this as a straight filler game trying not to be the last one with any cards. We normally play 2 or 3 games at a time before moving onto other games, such as UNO, 6 Nimmt or Bohnanza.

A simple way of keeping score should you wish is to give the winner 5 points, second 3 points, third 1 point and no points for the player who was last (4 player game); and record the scores for the evening or over the whole holiday to produce the 'Frank's Zoo' holiday champion

Is it Fun?

Of course it is it plays quickly in around 10 - 15 minutes with great scope for family interaction as the animals hit the table, " my fox eats your puny hedgehog dad", "my elephant tramples that mangey fox of yours sister", " so what, my mouse sticks its tongue out and scares away the nellie" says my son, "I win" says my wife

The illustrations are really quite splendid and the animal food chain theme comes over very well.


courtesy of Francisco Rueda García

The tactics of holding onto your sets for maximum effect and keeping both land and marine animals so as not to get stuck, are easily learned and fairly intuitive after a couple of plays.

As I mentioned earlier we play the simple version of the game but I'm sure that the partnership version would also be great fun for other families.

So, its portable, quick to play, easy to explain & understand and takes very little space to play; simply a perfect holiday game for the family.

Greatest compliment I can lay, is that this game has successfully introduced non-gamers into the pleasure that is gaming with the family and friends. It has also induced friends to say, "any other games like that we can try".

I have a spare shrinkwrapped copy ready to give to the next group of friends who try and enjoy this game to assist them on the road to 'geekhood