Beasty Bar Down Under

• Designer: Stefan Kloss, Anna Oppolzer
• Publisher: Zoch
• Players: 2-4
• Age: 8+
• Time: 20 minutes
• Played with review copy provided by publisher

In Beasty Bar: Down Under, a flood of new faces floods into the Beasty Bar.  As in earlier Beasty Bar titles, which can be combined with this title, players take turns having their sea creatures line up at Heaven’s Gate. If the line is full, the two animals at the front can make themselves comfortable in the bar, while the animal at the end of the queue has to go home again. That’s why the animals use fishy tricks to push their way to the front. The magical manta ray uses a diversionary maneuver, while the eel squeezes unnoticed into even the smallest gap and the noble swordfish duels for a place.  In the end, the player who manages to place the most animals in the bar wins.

This game can be played by itself, or it can be combined with cards from any of the other games in the series (Beasty Bar, Beasty Bar: New Beasts in Town, Beasty Bar: Born to be Wild) – so long as you have one animal of each of the ranks.  For this review, we played only with the cards in this particular box – in part because it’s the only Beasty Bar set I happen to currently own!

Set up the Bar by placing a Heaven’s Gate card on one side of the table and a Bounced card on the other – leaving room for five cards in between them (the Jostling area).  The That’s It card is placed to the right of Bounced card.  Each player takes their set of 13 cards in their color, shuffles them and draws a starting hand of 4 cards.

On a turn, the player goes through five phases

1] Play an animal – put your card as close to Heaven’s Gate as you can, but at the back of the line

2] Carry out the Action of your animal – each of the 13 animals has it’s own action, graphically represented at the bottom of the card

• Whale (12) – It places itself between any two animals in line and then washes all the cards from the side with a lower total strength onto the That’s It card.
• Manta Ray (11) – The Manta Ray goes to the front of the line, right next to Heaven’s Gate, but makes a card of the same color go back into your hand.
• Shark (10) – It dives under a weaker animal in front of it, and then it eats the animal directly in front of it (to the That’s It card)
• Swordfish (9) – It challenges any other card to a duel. The Swordfish and any other card in line are placed facedown and shuffled, the owner of the other card points at one, and whichever card he points at stays in line, the other goes to the That’s It card
• Octopus (8) – moves to the end of the line but swaps the position of two other animals
• Turtle (7) – it sits on a weaker animal, and that animal suffers the same fate as the turtle. Also, the player who is being sat upon has his next card play determined by the turtle
• Dolphin (6) – will swim up the line so long as they alternate being smaller then bigger (or vice versa)
• Hermit Crab (5) – If the number of animals in line is odd, the crab will overtake any odd card in front of it. If the number is even, the crab overtakes an even number card in front of it.
• Eel (4) – It puts itself in the smallest numerical gap between two animals in the line
• Seahorse (3) – jumps over animals in line and continues to do so as long as the next one is higher than the one previously jumped.
• Pufferfish (2) – it jumps over the last card in line and then turns itself sideways; it counts as two animals when checking for 5 this round
• Clownfish (1) – when played it swaps places with the card closest to Heaven’s Gate. It also exchanges places at a positive 5 animal check if it is at either end
• Jellyfish (0) – it swims under the line so it is not counted in the check. If the check is positive, it follows the fate of any other animal of its color.

3] Take Recurring Actions – starting at Heaven’s Gate and going down the line, see if there are any Sharks or Hermit Crabs in line, and if so, their actions trigger on the turn of every player.

4] Five Animal Check – If there are fewer than 5 animals in line, skip this step. Otherwise, take the two animals closest to Heaven’s Gate and put them face down into the Beasty Bar.  Also take the animal closest to the Bounced card and place it face up onto the That’s It card.

5] Draw a Card – replenish your hand by drawing the top card from your deck.

When everyone has played all their cards, the player with the most points worth of cards in the bar is the winner. 

My thoughts on the game

I’ve played a few of the previous versions of Beasty Bar, and they all have interesting interactions with their animal cards.  This version is no different, and though it has been awhile, this is the “meanest” version of the game that I can remember.  

The decisions each round are not necessarily simple, and you’ll have to think your way through the different possibilities as you decide which of your four animals to play each round.  If you have a good memory, you can take advantage of this near the end of the game as you might be able to discern which animals are yet to be played by your opponents and thus try to defend against their special abilities.

Each game is quick, and there is usually plenty of laughter and cries of surprise as the animals fight amongst themselves for the right place in line.  As I mentioned, the rules say that you can combine these cards with any other Beasty Bar sets, but I don’t have any at hand to do that.  But, for fans of the series, it’s great to provide another set of different animals and actions to keep things fresh.

As with most Zoch games, this is targeted at the family and casual market, and this quick playing title is easy to learn and enjoyable to play.  The entire series appears to be a big success in the German market (as you can tell from the number of expansions that the series has had).   As I said, some of the actions in Down Under are a bit on the meaner side, but not so much that you wouldn’t play this over and over again at a holiday party.  If you want a kinder set, the original game, Beasty Bar which was published in 2014 would also be a great starting point.

Ratings from the Opinionated Gamers

• I love it!
• I like it.
• Neutral. Dale Y, John P
• Not for me…