YAK (2015)

About this game

Players boast about the elusive creatures they claim to have seen in the mountains. But can you always believe their stories? Every player gets five cards, showing one of five animals with quantities of 1, 2 or 3. The starting player plays a card face down on the table, making a claim such as "I have seen one Yak", then draws a new card. Next player adds to that stack, raising the claim, either by raising the number or the size of the animal. The cards in the stack represent the animals which have actually been around. Play continues in clockwise order until a player calls a bluff and flips open the stack. If it doesn't contain at least as many animals of the last kind as were announced, the bluffing player takes the stack as a penalty, if it does, the caller takes them. Beware, there are some special cards that players can sneak into the stack, those which reduce the numbers on the cards or those that make all animals appear as the same kind. When the draw pile is exhausted, the player with least penalty cards wins. The game is a simplified reimplementation of Bluff im Zoo.

Does it fit your group?

• Group size. Works with 2 to 6.
• Rules load. At 1.0/5 this is a light game — explain it in a few minutes, good for a table that has not played much.
• Age. The publisher suggests 8 and up. That rates the rules rather than the artwork, so judge the box yourself for younger players.