Frank's Zoo - a lovely card game for 4 to 7 players, ages 8 and upwards.

Components

60 cards, 5 of each type of 11 animals plus 4 mosquitoes and a chameleon (aka joker!). Each animal shows not only the animal but also all of the animals that outrank it. For example, the Fox is outranked by the Crocodile, Lion, Polar Bear and the Elephant. In it's turn the Elephant is outranked by the humble Mouse. A single Mosquito can join with one or more Elephants and adds one to the total of Elephants played. Chameleons can be played with any other animal and become that animal, hence a Lion and a Chameleon is counted as 2 Lions.

Objective

The objective of Frank's Zoo is to capture more cards than your opponents. You capture cards by being the last player to add one or more cards to the play area. The winner is the first person to score a total of 19 cards, which may take more than one round. This number can obviously be varied depending how long you want the game to continue.

Setting Up

Shuffle the cards and then deal the entire deck out between the players. Each player then needs to organise their hands so that they know the animals and how many of each that they have.

Game Play

The player to the left of the dealer starts and play continues clockwise. The first player may play one or more cards representing the same animal (except where the chamelon is played or where a mosquito acts like an elephant). Subsequent players must either play the same number of cards plus one of the same animal, the same number of cards but of an animal that outranks that currently active or may pass if they cannot play. The round continues until a player finds that he has the cards he last played still active when the turn gets back to him, the player then collects those cards and adds them to their scoring pile. The player then starts a new round.

The game continues until only one player has cards remaining. Points are then awarded to people for the cards they have in their scoring pile plus additional points depending on the sequence in which players emptied their hands of cards.

If two players have not scored 19 points then the deck is reshuffled and there are two options for continuing play, the first and the simplest is to play is to continue as was played in the first round. The second option involves partners and allows 2 cards to be exchanged between partners hands before play commences. In addition the junior partner (the person who scored lower of the two in the previous round) may ask his partner for help in outranking the active animal set, if the junior partner subsequently wins then he retains the cards.

The Hooks

The game has a great deal of visual appeal and is suitable for all ages, it is as easy to imagine playing with a 10 year old as it is an 80 year old, it is ideally suited for people who are not recognised gamers. Since it takes only a short amount of time to learn the rules, little time to set-up and can be played in as little as 15 minutes it is ideal for quick play perhaps whilst waiting for other games to complete.

Your Tactics

How to play each hand really depends on the cards you are dealt. If you don't have the animals at the top of the food chain then you need to encourage others to use those cards early on so that you have a chance to pickup tricks later.

When do you play a single card rather than a pair or even a treble. The more cards which are laid each time the less likely someone will be able to outrank but also the bigger the pile gets.

Can you support your junior partner to stop one of your closer rivals from taking a handful of cards.

Conclusion

A pleasant enough game with enough to make players think. It's appeal is enhanced by great illustrations and you should be able to persuade anyone who plays cards to give it a try.

Additional Reviews

Details from Boardgamegeek