Barnyard Roundup
Barnyard Roundup Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- 75 Farm Animal Cards
- 15 Crow Cards
- 13 Action Tokens
- 5 Animal Bonus Cards
- 10 Set Bonus Cards
Objective
The goal of the game is to collect the most valuable farm animals for Farmer Brown to sell on Market Day. You do this by playing cards face-down from your hand and declaring what they are, then giving one other player the choice to decide if you are bluffing or telling the truth. If they choose correctly, THEY get the Farm Animal card(s) you played, but if they guess wrong, YOU get the card instead. Whoever wins Farm Animal cards adds them to their collection. But you may also get Crows, pests that irritate Farmer Brown and count against you in the scoring.
Set Up
- Place the 5 Animal Bonus cards in order of value (Cow, Pig, Sheep, Goat, Chicken).
- Place the Set Bonus cards in a stack on the table.
- Place 1 Robber and 1 Excuse Me Token in the middle of the table, face-down, for each player in the game and mix them up. (A 3 player game would have 3 Robber and 3 Excuse Me Tokens in the middle.)
- Everyone draws a Token, looks at it, and then keeps it secret.
- Now add the Scarecrow Token, face-down, to the tokens in the middle and mix them up.
- Shuffle the Farm Animal deck and deal out cards according to the number of players:
- 6 cards to each player for a 2-4 player game
- 5 cards to each player for a 5-6 player game.
- Remove 8 random cards from the deck and return them to the box.
- Select the First Player (the last person to have visited a farm) and begin!
Game Play
Actions to take during your turn:
- Bluff a Farm Animal Card or Cards.
- Current player may play action tokens if they have them.
- End your turn by drawing your hand back up to the hand limit.
(You may play your Action Tokens before or after your bluff, that is up to you.)
Bluff Animal Cards
The Current Player takes any amount of matching Farm Animal Cards or Crows from their hand and places it face down in front of any other player they choose. The Current Player then declares the cards to be a set of one of the five Farm Animals (not Crow). The person receiving the face-down card(s) then has to decide if the Current Player is bluffing or not and says either "That is NOT a _____" or "I think that IS a ____".
If the person being bluffed guessed correctly, meaning they either...
- Correctly guessed the Current Player laid down card(s) that were not what they said they were, or
- Correctly guessed the Current Player laid down card(s) that actually were what they said they were
...they take the Farm Animal card(s), or give the Crow card(s) back to the Current Player.
When you receive cards from a bluff attempt, whether Farm Animal or Crow, place them in front of you on the table, face-up, for everyone to see. As you gain additional cards of the same type, fan them out so other players can easily see how many and what type of cards you will be scoring. (See scoring example.)
You are allowed to play multiple cards, but all cards played must match. If you claim the three cards you passed are Sheep, they must all be three of the same thing. You can claim them to be any Farm Animal (except Crow) you want, but every card played must be of the same animal.
Bluffing Examples
Example 1: Bob passes John a face-down Goat and says, "This is a Pig". John says, "That is NOT a Pig!" John turns the card over and finds out he was correct, so he places the Goat face-up in front of him, which will add toward John's score at the end.
Example 2: Bob passes John two face-down Chickens and says, "That is two Chickens". John says, "These are NOT Chickens!" John turns the cards over and finds out he was incorrect, so Bob places the Chickens face-up in front of him, which will add towards Bob's score at the end.
Example 3: Bob passes John four face-down Crows and says, "These are four Sheep". John says, "These are Sheep!" John turns the card over and finds out he was incorrect, so he is forced to place the Crows face-up in front of him, which will subtract 5 points each from John's score at the end.
Crows
Crows are treated differently than Farm Animals. The Crow is the only card in the Farm Animal Deck where you MUST pretend it is another animal when passing it. You may never pass a card and say "This is a Crow".
Crows are a major pest to Farmer Brown and they will NOT make him happy when he sees them mixed in with the other animals. Crows are worth negative points (-5 per Crow).
However, for every 3 Crows in your pen, Farmer Brown takes pity on you and allows you to draw an additional Action Token from the table. Gain 1 Action Token for each multiple of 3 Crows that you reach (3, 6, 9, 12, and 15).
Example: Bob, who has 2 Crows, fails a bluff attempt and gains 5 more Crows, bringing his total to 7. Bob would get to draw 2 Action Tokens, one for passing the 3-Crow limit in his pen and another for passing the 6-Crow limit. If he later gained 2 more Crows, bringing his total up to 9, he would draw 1 more Action Token.
Play Action Tokens
- Excuse Me: When you play this token, you interrupt a bluff attempt, say "Excuse Me," and YOU become the person who is making the decision about whether the card(s) played are really what the Current Player claims them to be. You completely replace the previous person who was making that decision, and possibly gain Farm Animals or Crows instead of that player. Important: The Excuse Me Token can still be played after the original target has made their guess, but must be played before the cards are flipped over. Only one Excuse Me may be played per bluff.
- Robber: Play this token at any time during your own turn to attempt to steal cards from another player's hand. Choose a Farm Animal you would like and declare it. If the player you have decided to rob has any of those animals they must give them ALL to you. You place them in your pen, face-up. If however, the animal of your choice is not in their hand and they have any Crows, you get all their Crows instead. If they don't have the Farm Animal you declared, and don't have any Crows, no cards are exchanged. Regardless of the outcome, the Robber token is discarded. The player who was robbed immediately gets to draw back up to the full hand limit if they lost cards in the exchange.
- Scarecrow: The Scarecrow Token is used immediately when drawn from the pile. It scares away the last 3 Crows in your pen. These 3 Crows land in other player's pens of the current player's choice. Crows must be distributed evenly and if there are any left over, they are discarded from the game. (If getting a crow from a scarecrow action would give you a multiple of 3 crows in your pen, you draw an action token like normal. Make sure to add the scarecrow token back into the mix, you have the possibility of drawing it as well!) Remember to mix them up before making your selection.
All tokens are placed face-down in the middle of the table once they're used, and the pile is then mixed-up.
End Your Turn
When you have finished bluffing Farm Animal or Crow Cards and playing any and all Action Tokens you intend to play, your turn is over. Draw back up to the hand limit of your game (5 or 6 depending on player count).
Game End
When a player draws the last card from the main deck, the game ends immediately. This may be at the end of the Current Player's turn, or the end of a turn during which a player got robbed and drew the last card from the deck as part of their compensation.
At that point people compare scores to see who won. If players have Crows left in their hands, they are added to their pens for final scoring, so you are going to want to get those pesky Crows out of your hand! All other animals are discarded and not counted in your final score.
Scoring
When the game ends, determine who has the most of each type of Farm Animal and pass out the Farm Animal bonus cards. If two or more players are tied for the most of a particular Farm Animal, nobody gets the bonus for that type of Farm Animal.
If, during the game, you manage to collect 1 of each type of Farm Animal (Crows are not Farm Animals and don't affect Set Bonuses), you will get 10 points added to your score for each set that you managed to collect. Partial sets do not count. You may draw a set bonus card and add it to your pen for each set you own.
Each player gains points for every Farm Animal they have in their pen according to the value printed on the animal's card, loses points for the Crows in their pen, and adds their set bonus cards to reach the final total.
Whoever has the most points after adding all this up is the winner. In case of a tie, the player with the most Farm Animals is the winner. If there is STILL a tie, whoever has the least amount of Crows is the winner.
Scoring Example
Tommy has 5 Cows, 3 Pigs, 2 Sheep, 5 Goats, 7 Chickens, and 4 Crows. He won Animal Bonus Cards for having the most Goats and Chickens, but tied Samantha for Cows, so no one got the Cow bonus card. He completed 2 sets so he also got 2 Set Bonus cards worth 10 points each.
It's Math Time:
- +25 for Cows
- +12 for Pigs
- +6 for Sheep
- +10 for Goats
- +7 for Chickens
- -20 for Crows
- +10 for 2 Animal Bonus cards
- +20 for 2 Set Bonus cards
He scored 70 points total!
Two Player Variant
Remove "Excuse Me" tokens and randomly discard 20 cards from the deck instead of 8. Play the rest as normal!