BBC Earth Animals game

This has a very attractive board and rulebook and pieces.  Good production value.  It was disappointing when the first thing the rulebook said was to go to a website to get the video questions needed to play the game.  The site was still there, it's bbcearthboardgame.com.  You can play a demo round, or enter the code from the back page of the rulebook to play an official game.  

Oops.  The rulebook said the website was supposed to play a video then ask a question.  Each player has chips that say A, B or C, and they reveal their answers.  Correct answers get a card.  Except the site did not show any videos, just showed the questions.





Oh well.  The rules say if you have no internet connection, use the animal cards provided.  So a game has 8 rounds either way.  With the cards, one player has to be the quizmaster and read the questions -- they get two cards at the end of the 3 questions on the card.  Players who answer questions get one card for each correct answer plus one extra card.  Then the next player gets to be quizmaster.

You can spend cards in various combinations to move your piece on the board.  That part was interesting.  You can even steal a card from other players.

It's an odd assortment of game mechanics.  In the end it was just animal trivia, and the questions get pretty specific.  I suppose after a few games we would memorize the gestation period of a wolf or why the hyena does or doesn't laugh.  But it just didn't play well for us.  We got bored reading questions and only having a reasonable guess half the time.

It's clearly targeted at kids with inquisitive minds, and if they learn some bits about animals, that's a good thing.

 

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