Moose in the House (Gamewright)

Here's a card game we picked up on our last game/thrifting trip: Moose in the House.  I almost got this from the Gamewright website after finding another game of theirs that we really enjoyed about a year ago.  They have the rules PDFs for all their games, so you can get a feel for them.  That's a good idea.  I almost bought a few.

The art is cute, worth some chuckles the first time you see them.  The rules have some funny gags in them, ending with facts about moose.  It plays out in a very simple way.  Each player gets 4 cards to start, and each player has a "house" in front of them, a space where cards are played.  You build houses by playing empty room cards in from of the other players.  You don't build your own house at all.  Each house can have a maximum of 3 empty room cards.


To kick off the fun, when you get a Moose in the House card (the one with the moose walking through the front door), you play it on an opponent, after which that player can have moose cards played into their rooms.

If you get a door card, play it on one of your empty rooms -- you're supposed to say "Slam!" -- to keep moose out permanently.  While a player is playing a moose on you, you can play a Moose Trap card to stop it.

That's about it for the rules and which cards go where.  When the cards run our and nobody can play a card, count all the moose card in each player's rooms and hand, and the player with the least moose wins the hand.  I suppose you can keep an extended score and play to 50, but we don't usually focus on the scores.

With two players we found that the table got cluttered quickly, so we each moved any piles with a moose or a door card into a score pile to make room.  So, when she played a moose on one of my piles, I move that pile to my scoring pile right away.  It kept the play area clear and easy to scan for available moves.

It was certainly amusing the first two times through, but after seeing the five different mooses, there isn't going to be anything new in future sessions.  It doesn't have much replayability, although the rules do encourage you to say certain cues and try to make snarky comments as you play the cards.  There are only so many ways to be entertained by the moose in the fridge.

It would probably be a lot more fun with more players, or more amusing to younger players.