Eager Elephants
Eager Elephants Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Contents
- 4 hungry elephants (each consisting of a large elephant piece and 6 side sections)
- 1 mini elephant (consisting of a small elephant piece and 3 side sections)
- 32 food square cards
- 1 bush
- 1 rulebook
Before the First Game
Press all the Eager Elephants parts out of the cardboard punchboard. It is best to place all 7 Eager Elephant sections of the same color together so that you don't get mixed up later during assembly.
How to Assemble an Eager Elephant
First insert the ear and the 3 long pieces into the board. Then carefully slide the two small connectors in at an angle. Always make sure that the matching colored arrows are aligned.
One Eager Elephant is complete!
Assemble the mini elephant by pushing the two insert parts into the front and back of the board and then finishing the elephant by inserting the long section.
Your Eager Elephants only need to be assembled once, because they fit into the box when assembled. The trick: Place them upside down on top of each other so that the ear and tail of two Eager Elephants are always touching.
Game Setup
Everyone chooses an eager elephant and places it on the table in front of them. The bush is placed in the middle of the table within every player's reach. Shuffle the square food cards and place them in a pile on top of the bush.
Next take the top food square from the stack and place it under the mini elephant.
How to Play
Take turns in a clockwise direction.
Whoever last ate a tasty leaf salad begins.
Take the mini elephant and the card underneath it and place them both to the right of the starting player.
Getting Food Cards
On every turn the player receives 2 food square cards. The first is from the player before you, the second card is taken from the bush pile.
Exception: For the very first turn of the game, the starting player takes their first card from the mini elephant.
Choosing Food Cards
Each food card has 16 spaces, 3 of which always contain some delicious leaves from the bush. In the beginning, your hungry elephant's tummy is totally empty.
Player selects only 1 of the 2 food cards to place on top of their elephant. The leaf card can be turned and flipped however you like.
The goal is to fill as many spaces with leaves as possible into the eager elephant's tummy. Ideally the card that fills as many spaces with leaves as possible. Chomp, Chomp!
A bit of testing and trying out is okay, but once you place a card into the hungry elephant's tummy, it must remain there unchanged until the end of the game.
Important: As soon as a leaf covers a space, that space is now filled – regardless of how many leaves or empty spaces are placed on top of it. It's sometimes unavoidable to fill spaces several times. But they won't help you fill up your hungry elephant any faster.
Passing on Food Cards
Once you have placed your chosen food card, pass the left-over food card to the player on your left. This ends your turn, and it is now the next player's turn.
End of the Game
When a player has filled all the spaces of their own eager elephant's tummy with at least one leaf, finish the current round so that everyone has had an equal number of turns. Then the game is over.
Now compare the tummies of your elephants. All players who have a completely filled tummy have satisfied their hunger and they all win together.
The game also may end as soon as the leaf cards pile on the bush is empty. In this case, count the empty spaces in your elephants' tummies. The player with the least empty spaces wins.
If you like, you can give the left over cards at the end of the game to the mini elephant. How nice!
Variants
Easy Variant
For a simpler way to play, instead of choosing between two cards every turn, each player will just draw a single card from the bush to place. Setup the game as normal, but do not give the mini elephant a card. Otherwise, the rules remain the same. You may only draw your own food card once the player to your right has placed theirs.
Competitive Variant
You only get one food card per turn and must cover at least one empty space in the tummy of your hungry elephant with a leaf on it. If you can't do that, you're out of the game. In this variant, you don't win by filling up your eager elephant's tummy as quickly as possible, but instead when you are the last player to fill in an empty space. If the food cards run out, the players with the most empty spaces win.
Solo Variant
Take 7 random food cards from the bush and place them face-up in front of you. Can you get your eager elephant stuffed full with these? Tip: It's a little easier with 8 squares, if you want to start with that.