Oh, Fox! Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• How to Play
  • Overview
  • A Turn of Play
  • Action Cards
  • Eating Food: Prey Animals
  • Eating Food: Predator Animal
  • Healing
  • Objectives
  • Returning Home
• Game End and Scoring
  • Scoring for Prey Animals
  • Scoring for Predator Animal
  • Scoring Example (2 players)
• Expert Variants
  • Forest Facades
  • Masked Predator
• FAQ
• Trigger Abilities
• Objectives

Components

• 52 action cards (13 cards per player colour): 4 single move cards, 3 double move cards, 3 stop cards, 1 move-stop card, 2 trigger cards
• 10 identity cards
• 10 animal cards (6 green prey cards, 4 red predator cards)
• 6 objective cards
• 1 scoring card
• 4 home tokens
• 4 player pawns
• 1 predator token
• 30 heart tokens
• 1 game board

Setup

1. Place the game board in the centre of the table.

2. Place the scoring card next to the board. From the set of objective cards, choose or randomly select 2 cards and place these face-up next to the board as well. Return the remaining objective cards to the box. For an easier first game, you can choose to leave the objective cards in the box.

3. Each player chooses a colour and takes 1 home token and all 13 action cards in their chosen colour. Players take their action cards in their hand and place their home token on the home space on the board that is closest to their seating position.

4. From the set of animal cards, choose or randomly select 2 predator cards (red) and 3 prey cards (green) and place these face-up next to the board. Return the remaining animal cards to the box.

5. Collect the identity cards with those same animals. Return the remaining identity cards to the box. Shuffle the 2 predator identity cards and randomly take 1 without looking at it. Then shuffle the 3 prey identity cards and randomly take 1 fewer than the number of players, again without looking. Return all other identity cards to the box. You should now have as many identity cards as the number of players, of which exactly 1 card is a predator identity card. Shuffle these cards together and give each player 1 card. Players look at their own identity card and place it face-down in front of them.

   The predator is the hardest role to play. If all players agree, you can choose to have the most experienced player be the predator. In this case, after shuffling the predator identity cards and taking 1 of them, directly give this card to the chosen player.

6. If you received the predator identity card, you must take the predator token, so that all players know that you are the predator. You also take all pawns in the colours that were chosen by the other players, which you may use to keep track of their locations on the board. Place your own pawn to the side.

7. Place all heart tokens to the side. This supply is not exhaustive, so if you ever run out of heart tokens, you should use substitute tokens.

How to Play

Overview

The game plays over 8 turns. Each turn, players simultaneously play 1 action card. After these 8 turns, players reveal their identity and simultaneously execute their 8 actions turn by turn. The player with the most hearts at the end of the game wins.

A Turn of Play

Each turn, players go through the following steps simultaneously:

1. Players secretly choose 1 action card from their hand, as well as the direction in which they want to play it. Each action card can be played in 4 different directions, which determines the direction you will move into on the board. The direction you move into is always the same as the direction of your action card, regardless of your seating position on the table.
2. Players simultaneously reveal their action card and place it in front of themselves in the chosen direction. Action cards are placed from left to right and form a row to the right of the identity card.

Tip: to make sure you don't mix up the orientation of your card, you could hold your chosen card upright on the table and reveal it by letting it fall face-up.

IMPORTANT: Don't execute any actions yet! Actions are not executed until the end of the game. See Game End and Scoring. Until then, you can always retrack a player's position on the board by looking at the action cards that he has played so far.

The predator player may use the pawns of the other players as a memory aid in tracking their positions on the board. This is optional.

As the predator player, you may use the board as a mindmap in any way you like. If you are especially devious, you can even place a pawn on the wrong space on purpose, to give that player a false sense of security!

Action Cards

Single move card: You move to the first space you encounter when following the route in the direction of the arrow.

Double move card: After leaving your current space in the direction of the arrows, you move straight across the first space you encounter and continue the route to the second space. You can make many surprising movements with a double move action.

When simultaneously executing actions at the end of the game, moves across multiple spaces are executed 1 space at a time. This is important for the ways in which a predator animal can attack a prey animal. See Eating Food: Predator Animal.

Stop card: You don't change position. As a prey animal, you require this card to eat food. See Eating Food: Prey Animals.

Move-stop card: This card combines the single move card with the stop card. With it, a prey animal can move and immediately eat food on the space it moves into in the same turn. The stop has no extra effect for the predator animal.

Trigger card: This card activates the special ability of your animal. If it cannot activate the special ability, it functions as a regular single move instead. See Trigger Abilities for an overview of each special ability.

The player who is last in playing his first trigger card wins a possible scoring tie at the end of the game. See Game End and Scoring.

Playing a trigger card in your first turn is a strong opening move, because you can immediately confuse other players about your position. However, you might want to delay it for the tiebreaker.

Eating Food: Prey Animals

Eating food is the main way to score hearts. The way to eat food is different for prey and predator animals.

If you are a prey animal, the type of food you eat is displayed in the top right corner of your animal card. Each type of food can be found on 4 spaces on the board. For example, the squirrel only eats one type of food. These can be found on 4 specific spaces on the board.

To eat food, you must play a stop card while you are on a space with your food on it. You can only eat once on a space, so if you play another stop card on a space where you have already eaten, it will have no effect.

You could play a stop card on a different space to pretend that you eat a different type of food. You won't receive any hearts, but you might fool the predator!

Example: After moving to a space with a food in the first turn, green eats the food in the second turn by playing a stop card.

IMPORTANT: Don't gain any hearts yet! Hearts are not scored until the end of the game. At the end of the game, you receive 1 heart for each food you eat. You even receive 1 bonus heart if you manage to fully satisfy your hunger by eating a total of 3 or more food. See Game End and Scoring.

Eating Food: Predator Animal

If you are the predator animal, you eat food by attacking a prey animal. You do so whenever you encounter a prey animal, either on a space or halfway across a route. You can only attack a prey animal once in the same turn. If you encounter multiple prey animals in the same turn, you attack each of them.

• Red is the predator and attacks green by moving to the same space.
• Red attacks green halfway across the route.
• Because moves are executed 1 space at a time, green is attacked by red during his movement.

IMPORTANT: Don't gain any hearts yet! Hearts are not scored until the end of the game. At the end of the game, for each time you attack a prey animal, you receive 1 heart and the prey animal receives 1 broken heart. You even receive 1 bonus heart if you manage to assert your dominance by attacking each prey animal at least once. You still receive this bonus when you attack the only prey animal in a 2-player game. See Game End and Scoring.

Healing

If you are a prey animal and you suspect that you have been attacked, you can heal by moving to the healing space on the board. Discard 1 broken heart for each time you end your turn on this space. If you don't have any broken hearts, this will have no effect. You don't need to play a stop card to heal. If you encounter the predator while ending your turn on the healing space, you immediately discard the broken heart that you receive from the attack.

Objectives

Objectives provide optional requirements that both prey and predator animals can fulfill. You receive 1 heart at the end of the game for each objective you complete. You can start or complete an objective in any turn. See Objectives below for an overview of each objective card.

Returning Home

If you are a prey animal, you receive 1 heart at the end of the game for returning to your home in turn 8. This means that you finish the game on the same space as the one you started on. Returning home is optional. Beware though, as you can still be attacked on your home while returning home.

Game End and Scoring

After 8 turns have been completed, the game ends. Players then go through the following steps:

1. The predator player guesses the identity of each other player. Then each player reveals his identity card. If the predator player manages to guess each of them correctly, he receives 1 heart.
2. Players place their identity card beneath their first action card. Next, each player takes his own pawn and places it on his home token on the board.
3. Players then play out their actions simultaneously: Turn by turn, they move their identity card along their row of action cards to indicate the current turn. Upon moving the identity card to the next action card, players execute the card by moving their pawn over the board while scoring hearts and broken hearts.

Scoring for Prey Animals

• 1 heart for each food you eat.
• 1 heart if you eat at least 3 food.
• 1 broken heart for each time you are attacked.
• Discard 1 broken heart for each time you heal.
• 1 heart for returning home in the last turn.
• 1 heart for each objective you complete.

Scoring for Predator Animal

• 1 heart if you correctly guessed the identities of all other players.
• 1 heart for each time you attack a prey animal.
• 1 heart for attacking each prey animal at least once.
• 1 heart for each objective you complete.

After players have completed their scoring, they discard 1 heart for each of their broken hearts. The player with the most hearts wins!

If there is a tie, the tieing player who was last in playing his first trigger card wins. If there is still a tie that includes the predator, the predator wins. If there is a tie without the predator, the tieing prey animal who is attacked the fewest number of times wins. If still tied, you should play again!

Scoring Example (2 players)

The squirrel played his first trigger card in turn 3. He received 4 hearts for eating food 3 times (1 for each food and 1 for eating food at least 3 times). He also received 1 broken heart for being attacked once and 1 heart for returning home in turn 8. In total, the squirrel received 4 - 1 + 1 = 4 hearts.

The fox played his first trigger card in turn 5. He received 1 heart for correctly guessing the other player's identity. He also received 2 hearts for attacking the squirrel once (1 for attacking the squirrel and 1 for attacking each prey animal at least once). Lastly, he received 1 heart for completing 1 objective. In total, the fox received 2 + 1 + 1 = 4 hearts.

Both players finish the game with 4 hearts. However, the fox was last to play his first trigger card, so the fox is the winner!

Expert Variants

Forest Facades

For an increased deduction challenge, more animal cards are included in step 4 of the setup:

• Tough nut to crack: Include 3 predator cards and 4 prey cards.
• Completely nuts: Include 4 predator cards and 6 prey cards.

If one player in the group is more experienced than the others, you could also increase the difficulty for that player alone. Have him play the predator animal and only increase the number of prey animal cards.

Masked Predator

In this variant, it remains a secret which player is the predator. Skip the predator token step of the setup: keep the predator token in the box and don't use the pawns until the end of the game.

This variant makes the game much harder for the prey animal players. We strongly recommend that you don't play this variant for your first few games!

FAQ

Q: When exactly does the predator attack preys? The predator animal can encounter a prey animal in many different ways. Movements are executed 1 space at a time, so in some cases the prey animal will have moved away before the predator arrives.

• The prey is attacked after executing the first half of its double move action.
• The prey has already moved away from the intersecting space by the time the predator arrives.
• Attacks can also take place halfway across a route.

Q: Can the sparrow and owl encounter eachother during flight? No, they can't. The sparrow is immune to attacks during flight.

Q: Can the rabbit and badger encounter eachother during their underground movement through the same tunnel? No, they can't. The rabbit directly moves to the tunnel exit.

Trigger Abilities

Hedgehog: Your trigger action is a single move action. You cannot be attacked this turn.

Rabbit: If your current space has a tunnel, directly move to the space with the other tunnel of the same colour, regardless of the direction of your trigger action. If your current space doesn't have a tunnel, your trigger action is a single move action.

Rat: Your trigger action is a single move action in the opposite direction.

Sparrow: Fly forward in the direction of your trigger action until you arrive on a home space of any colour (including unused ones), even if you started this turn on a home space. Execute this move 1 space at a time. You cannot be attacked while flying, but you can be attacked on the space you arrive on.

Squirrel: Your trigger action is a double move action.

Toad: From anywhere on the board, directly move to the healing space regardless of the direction of your trigger action, even if you are already there.

Badger: If your current space has a tunnel, directly move to the space with the other tunnel of the same colour, regardless of the direction of your trigger action. If your current space doesn't have a tunnel, your trigger action is a single move action.

Fox: Your trigger action is a single move action in the opposite direction.

Owl: Fly 3 spaces forward in the direction of your trigger action. Execute this move 1 space at a time. You cannot attack while flying, but you can attack on the space you arrive on.

Viper: Your trigger action is a single move action followed by another single move action back to the space you started your movement on this turn.

Example: Where would each animal move to with a trigger action? (The example shows a board with each animal's destination numbered: Hedgehog 1, Rabbit 2, Rat 3, Sparrow 4, Squirrel 5, Toad 6, Badger 7, Fox 8, Owl 9, Viper 10.) The hedgehog encounters both the badger and the viper, but is immune to attacks during its trigger action. The rabbit moves through the purple tunnel. The badger does not activate its trigger ability, so performs a regular single move. The owl flies over the hedgehog and toad, so does not attack them. After moving 1 space, the viper moves back again.

Objectives

• Fickler: Don't play the same type of action card consecutively.
• Navigator: Point at least 1 action card of any type in each of the 4 directions. This does not include stop cards, as they have no direction.
• Slowpoke: Don't play any of your double move cards.
• Straggler: Play all 3 of your stop cards. This does not include the move-stop card.
• Stroller: Play all 4 of your single move cards. It does not matter in which direction you play them. This does not include the move-stop card.
• Swimmer: Play a stop card while you are on the healing space. This does not include the move-stop card.