Animal Upon Animal
Designed by: Klaus Miltenberger
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.
Sam says
A great little dexterity game that my kids enjoyed a lot when they were younger, and is engaging enough to stop adults from glazing over. In fact I’ve played it with only adults and it was fun! I enjoy dexterity games generally, and while this isn’t a hall of fame, it’s an entertaining little thing with plenty enough going on for multiple visits.
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Take That!
Very little, unless you're going super-strategic with your placements and trying to maximise someone else's chances of collapsing the stack. And if you're playing with kids, you really shouldn't be doing that.
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Fidget Factor!
Low, though obviously the attention span of any age can vary.
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Brain Burn!
None beyond the physical challenge with the inherent values of balance, shape, weight, and so on.
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Again Again!
Why not?
