Mar 4, 2021

Barnyard Round Up – Refreshing Playfulness

Designer: James Hudson

Artists: Lina Cossette

Publishers: Druid City Games

Release Date: 2016

Player count: 2 - 6

Age range: 6+

Time range: 10 - 20 minutes

Mechanism(s): Hand Management, Set Collection, Take That

On occasion, you fancy a hike up uncharted paths or a saunter in a park, but suddenly you run full speed and cannonball into a pool, feeling refreshed and giggling for the youthful fun. Barnyard Round Up delivered that lively feeling.

Barnyard Roundup is a set collection game for 2-6 players employing bluffing or truthful tactics. In Barnyard Roundup, players try to gain the most points by convincing other players of their honesty, sincerity or misleading convincingly.

Gameplay

Each player begins with a hand of six cards and one Action token. On a player's turn, they choose a number of matching animal cards from their hands and offer them to another player face down. The player declares what the cards are –for example, two Pigs. The player receiving the cards face down must then decide if the player was genuine or bluffing. If they guess correctly, they keep the cards. If they guess wrong, the first player gets to keep their cards for their own pen.

Wild Cards: Copy Cat and negative point Crow cards adds a level of trickery and deception. This is where the gotcha and giggle join the game. The Crow cards work oppositely that if the receiving player guesses incorrectly, they must take the Crows and add them to their pen. When a player reaches a multiple of 3 Crows, they get a new Action token, and if you draw the Scarecrow, it scares away 3 Crow cards to other players' pen.

Barnyard Roundup also includes three types of tokens that provide special abilities to the players.

The Burglar – The player can attempt to steal cards from a player. Once the player declares which animal has that animal in their hand, they must give all to the Burglar to put in their pen. If they do not have that animal, they provide all their Crows in their hand to the Burglar to put in their pen. Ouch!!

Excuse Me – On another player's turn, interrupt and take over a deal between two other players.

Scarecrow- The Scarecrow takes up to 3 Crows from your pen and divides them between any other players. Only one can be given to another player; the remainder is removed from the game.

A game of Barnyard Roundup ends when the last card is drawn. Math time. Bonus point cards are awarded for having the most of any type of farm animal and having complete sets of farm animals, one each of Cow, Pig, Goat, Sheep, and Chicken. Each player adds points for the animals in their pen and subtracts points for the Crows cards.

The player with the most points wins.

Bits and Bobs

90 Animal cards (15 each cow, pig, sheep, goat, chicken, crow)

7 Copy Cat Cards

5 Animal Bonus cards

8 Set Bonus cards

6 Thief tokens

6 Excuse Me tokens

1 Scarecrow token

Last Thoughts

Barnyard Round-Up is a family-friendly game that is educational and amusing. We had planned to play with an adorable six-year-old; however, he was not up for learning a new game. The adults played and found it highly interactive with a big dash of sabotage to intensify the gameplay. It is set collecting with a cagey twist.