Description

"Animal Tracks, Make Tracks to Collect the Animals"

A 4x4 grid is surrounded on all sides by 16 tiles with animals on them. Each tile shows a picture with a type of animal, either pigs, hens, sheep, or cows. Players get 2 track tiles each, which are placed (one each turn) on the grid to create connections (roads) between the animals. When a player places a track tile so that it connects 2 animal tiles of the same type, then those animal tiles are removed from the board and placed on that player's scoring stack. Empty spaces are filled with animal tiles from the draw stack, each player also draws a new track tile at the end of the turn and play continues until all animal tiles are collected or all track tiles are played. Track tiles may be placed on top of each other, and matching sets of animals may only be collected if the connection is made by establishing a new(!) route between them.

Each animal tile has one to three animals on it, and each player's end score is equivalent to the total amount of animals on the gained tiles. The one who collected most animals is the winner.

What appears to be a very simple tile-laying games with an appealing farmyard animal theme is quietly hiding a rather clever maze game that challenges children on multiple fronts. There are only four different track tiles in the game, yet there are so many ways to place these that a bewildering amount of new routes have to be considered. Visualizing the one that would connect two identical animal types, let alone spotting the most profitable one can be a challenge even for adults.

But kids love tiles, and kids love puzzles, and the rules are so intuitive that they easily get engrossed in an entertaining game. The best children games do far more than simple entertaining, and by having to match identical animals, create new routes between them, and consider the relative value of two matched tiles (2 hens and 3 hens is better than 1 sheep and 2 sheep) half an hour of fun is well spent indeed. There are 68 animals on offer, so even determining the final scores can be a quick math lesson.

The suggested age range is from 7 upwards, but it is such a good bridging game that it would suit even slightly younger children. For kids at the younger end of the spectrum, it might be simpler to settle for "whoever has the highest animal stack wins", but even then there is enough left to make this a game worth considering.

Also known as "Dierensporen" in Dutch and "Pistes d'Animaux" in French.