Diet Evil Games had kindly sent me a review copy of their latest release, which I’d tried out on the family and now wanted to check the opinion of the Shrewsbury Games Club. Nobody But Us Chickens is a family card game, which inevitably will draw comparisons with Hick Hack Im Gackelwack. The idea of the game is to capture the juiciest chickens by canny play of your cards, outguessing your opponents at every turn. Everyone starts with identical hands of 9 cards, which contain a mixture of chickens, foxes, rats and guard dogs. Everyone places one of their cards face-down on the table and then all are revealed. If only chickens are played, they gather in the centre of the table and are added to the next round of cards played. If foxes or rats are played, and there are also chickens present, the predators start eating the chickens one by one; foxes taking first pick, then rats, with foxes devouring the remainder of chickens if any. If there are no chickens present, the foxes and rats go away empty handed. A guard dog chases any predators away and is rewarded with all the chickens, but if there are no predators, but only chickens, the guard dog is unsuccessful. Once all 9 cards have been played, the round ends and players score points according to the chickens they’ve caught. Play a number of rounds equal to the number of players and the person with the highest total points wins.
The game is all bluff and double bluff – Ooh there are some juicy chickens there so now’s the time to play my fox, but then if I do that, Nige might play his guard dog so I ought to play a chicken, but if Nige plays a fox instead, I ought to play my guard dog. I quite like this kind of guesswork but it’s not to everyone’s taste. Nige does not like this kind of game at all – it’s probably too much fun for him – but Mark G and I are happy to wile away fifteen minutes or so like this and usually enjoy the ride. It’s perfect to play with non-gamers and, as that’s the market it’s aimed at, it should do well.
Mark G got off to a flying start gaining 14 points in the first round. I managed to peg him back in the second round and found the cards fell perfectly for me in the third, giving me a commanding lead. Although Mark K and Nige scored double figures in the final round, it wasn't enough and I took the win.
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