Bluff in Zoo
Bluff in Zoo Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Components
- Instruction manual
- 108 playing cards, including:
- 75 animal cards, showing elephants, lions, foxes, rabbits and mice (five cards each of values 1-3)
- 12 wild cards (six cards each of values 1 and 2)
- 12 action cards (six cards each of two different functions)
- 8 stop cards
- 1 starting player card
Setup
Shuffle all cards except the starting player card. Each player draws five. Place the rest on the table, face down, as a draw pile. The last player to have visited a zoo is the starting player and places the starting player card in front of him or her.
How to Play
Beginning with the starting player and then proceeding in clockwise order, each player makes one of the following moves:
- Place one card on the table and claim to have seen a certain number of animals (note: in the starting player's first move, this is the only possible action).
- Place no card on the table and claim to have seen a certain number of animals.
- Doubt the previous player's claim.
When placing a card on the table, there are two options:
- You may pick one of your hand cards and place it on the table, face down (additional cards are placed on top of the first one, so a discard pile is formed). The discard pile represents the animals which are in fact in the zoo.
- Instead, you may draw a card from the draw pile, look at it and then place it on the discard pile. You may not add this card to your hand cards!
In either case you have to make a claim about what animals you have seen. For that, you state how many animals of one kind you have seen, for instance: "I saw three lions." You always have to best the player before you:
- Either you claim to have seen more animals than the player before you. In this case, the kind of animal doesn't matter. Four mice thus beat three lions.
- Or you claim to have seen bigger animals than the player before you. In this case, the number may be the same (but not smaller). The size ranking of animals is elephant > lion > fox > rabbit > mouse. Three elephants thus beat three lions.
Note: The starting player always has to claim to have seen exactly one animal (of any kind).
Doubting
When you doubt the last player's claim, you flip open all cards in the discard pile and count the animals of the claimed kind. If their number is equal to or higher than the number claimed, the doubter must place all the cards in the discard pile in front of him/her. If their number is less than the claim, the player before you has lied and has to take all cards from the discard pile and place them in front of him/her, face down. Each card received counts one negative point. You may not look at your point cards later. It is best to make stacks of ten cards to keep an overview of your points.
Wild Cards
When counting the animals, the wild cards always count as the kind of animal last claimed. There are wild cards counting as one and wild cards counting as two animals.
Action Cards
Action cards affect the counting of animals:
- "All cards count 1": All animal and wild cards count as if there were only one animal on them.
- "All animals are equal": All animals count as the kind last claimed, without changing their number.
When both action cards are in the stack, the effects are cumulative. All cards count as one animal, but of the kind last claimed.
Additional action cards of the same kind have no additional effects. Treat them as if there was only one of them.
The Stop Cards
If there is a stop card in the discard pile, all action cards are ignored. Two stop cards cancel each other out, so the action cards remain valid. An odd number of stop cards has an effect, while an even number doesn't. If there are no action cards in the pile, stop cards have no effect.
Note: Wild cards are not action cards. Stop cards therefore have no effect on wild cards.
Example
Thomas is the starting player. He puts a card from his hand on the table and says: "One mouse." Eva draws a card from the draw pile, looks at it and places it on Thomas's card. She says: "Two lions." Paul puts a card from his hand onto the discard pile and says: "Two elephants." Now it's Thomas's turn again. He takes a card from the draw pile, looks at it and puts it on the discard pile. He says: "Three mice." Eva doesn't put down a card, but claims to have seen: "Five mice." Paul thinks that Eva is exaggerating and doubts her. He opens the four cards in the discard pile and finds:
- 1 fox
- 2 wild cards
- 1 action card "All animals count 1"
- 3 mice
Therefore there are only two mice in the zoo. Paul caught Eva lying, so she has to put the four cards in front of her as negative points. If the action card had been "All animals are equal", there would have been six mice in the pile. Eva's claim would have been true and Paul would have taken the negative points.
End of Turn
After someone has received points, the turn ends. All players refill their hand cards to 5. The starting player card is passed to the player on the left of the current starting player.
End of Game
The game ends when the draw pile is depleted and not all players can fill up their hand to five; or when a player has accumulated 30 or more points. Now everyone counts their points. The player with most points is the most honest player. The player with least points wins the game (in case of a tie, all tied players win). The most honest player may choose where to sit in the next game.