Boo to the Goose
Boo to the Goose Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
120 cards: 5 colour-coded sets, each with 15 geese, 5 foxes and 4 dogs.
Aim of the Game
The aim is to catch the most geese, by skilfully playing your cards with plenty of intuition and the right degree of willingness to take risks.
Preparation
Each player: take a card set of one colour, shuffle the cards well and place them in front of you as a face-down pile. Then draw 5 cards from your pile and put them in your hand. The rest of the cards remain in front of you as your personal, face-down draw pile.
Rules
Choose who will start. Players then take turns clockwise.
When it's your turn, you put down one of the cards in your hand as follows:
FACE-DOWN if it is a GOOSE or a DOG. The face-down cards lie next to each other in a row. Then you immediately draw another card from your draw pile and it's the next player's turn.
FACE-UP if it is a FOX. A fox immediately triggers a "Catch the geese!" round. This means: starting with the person on your left, you can turn over whichever card you want, that this person has lying face-down in front of them.
Depending on which animal is pictured on the card, the following happens:
GOOSE: You're in luck! If you want, you can continue by also turning over the next player's card, going clockwise. If you turn over a goose again, you are allowed to carry on playing like this until you either end the round voluntarily or turn over a dog. Once you get to the player on your right, you are allowed to carry on turning over cards belonging to the player on your left.
In a two-player game, you can carry on turning over the face-down cards of your opponent for as long as you want or until you turn over a dog.
N.B.: If a player does not have any face-down cards in front of them they are skipped.
If you end the round voluntarily, you take all the uncovered geese cards as well as your face-up, played fox card and place them all in front of you as a face-up win pile. All other cards still lying face-down on the table are left as they are!
Example of a Game with Three Players
Matt starts, puts a card down, face-down, in front of himself and draws a new one from his draw pile. Then it is Emma's turn and she does the same thing, and so does Tom. It carries on like this for three rounds, until Matt puts down a fox, face-up, from his hand. This starts a "Catch the geese!" round. He turns over a face-down card in front of Emma, who is sitting on his left. The card shows a goose. He decides to continue the round and also turns over a face-down card in front of Tom. This card also shows a goose. Matt is prepared to take risks and continues the round by turning over another card in front of Emma. He is in luck – it is another goose. He decides to end the round voluntarily, takes the three revealed geese cards and his fox card and puts them on his face-up win pile.
DOG: Bad luck! Your turn ends straight away and you have not caught any geese either, even if you have already turned over one or more cards with geese belonging to the others. Instead, everyone who has one or more cards (geese and dog) lying face-up in front of them puts these on their own win pile. The fox goes to the win pile of the person from whose cards the dog was revealed. All the other cards still lying face-down on the table stay as they are!
Example Continued
Suppose that, instead of the second goose, Matt turns over a dog in front of Emma. Then he has had bad luck. His turn ends straight away. In this case Emma and Tom can put the cards lying face-up in front of them (for Emma 1 goose and 1 dog, for Tom 1 goose) on their win pile. Emma receives the fox card from Matt - because Matt turned over the dog from her cards - and puts it on her win pile. All the other cards still lying face-down on the table stay as they are!.
N.B.: Of course, you also have bad luck if you already turn over a dog on your first attempt to grab a goose. Your turn then ends and the player whose card it was can put the dog and fox on their win pile.
As soon as you have finished the "Catch the geese!" round, regardless of whether this is voluntary or because of a dog, you replenish your hand of cards so that you have 5 again. Then it's the next person's turn, going clockwise.
Once you have used up your draw pile, you carry on playing until you have also played all of your hand.
The End of the Game
The game ends as soon as you have used all your draw pile and the last hand card has been played. Then take all the cards still lying face-down in front of you and place them on your win pile. Then count the number of cards in your win pile. The player who has collected the most cards wins. In the event of a draw, everyone in the draw wins.
Variation
To make the game a little bit more exciting, at the start of the game, right after shuffling your card set, remove four cards without looking at them. This ensures that nobody can figure out how many dogs, geese or foxes somebody still has in their set.