Collect Termites, Stack Blocks, and Change Your Species with Zoch Verlag in 2020

Collect Termites, Stack Blocks, and Change Your Species with Zoch Verlag in 2020
Board Game: Rüssel raus!
• German publisher Zoch Verlag has another quartet of animal-rich games coming your way in the first half of 2020, with the games all having a relatively low suggested player age, while seemingly featuring gameplay ideal for players of all ages.

Rüssel raus!, for example, is a game by Inka Brand, Markus Brand, and Matthias Prinz for 2-4 players, aged 6 and up, that has everyone involved on every turn:
Quote:
You own four termite mounds, i.e., stacks in front of you in which to collect cards. Each round, you try to send a new termite into the right mound by showing either one finger or no fingers. All players do this simultaneously though, and the sum total of all fingers determines how the cards will be stacked. If you are the first player to collect a set of three of the same termites in one location twice, you win. Until then, be wary of the dreadful pepper spray!
Sure, we need details of how this works with only two or three players, as well as how the termites in the center of the playing area are distributed, but we'll learn such things in the overview videos that BGG will record at Spielwarenmesse 2020 at the end of January and beginning of February.

Board Game: Rüssel raus!

Board Game: Da bockt der Bär
Da bockt der Bär (The Bear Bucked) from Treo Game Designers features a similar level of player interaction for 2-5 players, aged 5 and up, with you helping to determine whether your neighbor moves like a mouse, goes like a goat, or barrels along like a bear. In more detail:
Quote:
At the start of a round, you draw one card that you can either keep or give to another player. The card that you are left with then dictates whether your pawn is a mouse, a goat, or a bear. Each animal has its own die with its own advantages and disadvantages: The mouse is slow but can take shortcuts; the bear can go very fast, but sometimes is too lazy to do so; and the goat is neither fast nor slow, the reliable choice. If you are the first to cross the finish line, you win.
Board Game: Da bockt der Bär

Board Game: Einer geht noch!
• Players mess with one another a different way in Einer geht noch! (Cruise or Lose), a Paco Yanez design for 2-5 players, aged 8 and up, with you trying to sink opponents, while also working with them when you end up in the same boat. An overview:
Quote:
Einer geht noch! is a family card game that lets players send their animals aboard boats that will not capsize as long as their very strict weight limits are adhered to.

You draw three animal cards per round. You play these into boats: twice face up and one time face down. Each boat holds only three animals, though. After all of them have boarded, some animals can cause others to switch boats. Any boat with passengers that, in total, are too heavy for it will sink. Animals aboard boats that don't sink are worth VPs. If you have the most VPs after four rounds, you win.
Board Game: Einer geht noch!

Board Game: Flotter Otter
• Finally, we have a game in the "do things quickly at the same time as everyone else" bucket: Flotter Otter, a Daan Kreek design for 2-4 players, aged 8 and up:
Quote:
Flotter Otter (a.k.a. Otter Dam) is a pattern recognition game with multiple right answers per card, each of which translates to differently stacked colorful bricks.

Each round you reveal one new card for all players. You can order the objects shown on each card in two different ways, e.g. clocks might have varying sizes and display different times of the day. Since your bricks correspond with the unique colors of the objects on the card you can show one of the two possible solutions by stacking your bricks. The faster you are, the better — so long as you don't make a mistake. This also means that it is smart never to give up early, even in rounds when you seem to be lagging behind.
Board Game: Flotter Otter

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