Animal Upon Animal

Animal Upon Animal is a simple stacking game where players take turns to add animals to the back of a crocodile. The person who successfully gets rid of all their animals first is the winner – though considering the target age of the game, it can be played as a team effort where no-one loses, but everyone wins when all animals are successfully stacked.

Each player takes a set of several animals (monkey, penguin, toucan and so on) and the crocodile is placed in the middle of the table. On your turn you roll the die and make the subsequent action: stack one or two animals, pass an animal to someone else to stack, or add another animal to the table in front of or behind the crocodile – giving all players more places to stack. If at any point the stack collapses, the active player takes all the fallen animals into their hand!

Designed – very successfully – for children, there is something about Animal Upon Animal that tickles adults too. It’s incredibly simple and works for all ages.