LogFAQs > #871580991

43) Animals on Board (2016)
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/191572/animals-board
Animals on Board is a set collection game for 2-4 players. In this game there are a total of 60 animal tiles, 5 for each species. Every round a certain number will be face up (depending on player count) all in one group. On your turn you can either split one group into two groups and get one food token, or spend a number of food tokens to buy a group of the same size (like 4 tokens for a group of 4 animals). Once somebody obtains a group, they're out of the round. When everybody is out, a new round begins. The game ends when somebody has 10 animals at the end of a round. You will score points based on how many of each animal you've collected....with one catch. Some jerk named Noah has exclusive rights to pairs of animals, so you'll score 0 points for any pairs you have at the end of the game!

I think this is a really good gateway game. It's easy to teach and people usually have it figured out by the second round. Avoiding pairs of animals is harder than it sounds, because as soon as people notice you have 2 of something, they'll do what they can to stop you from getting any more of that species.


Hint for #42
One more obscure game (I don't even think this push your luck game has been released in NA), but after that there will be some well-known games showing up.
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Bear Bro
So confirmed, Santa's number one helper is a squirrel.