Happy Fox

The Game

Happy Fox is a simple card game from Wolfgang Kramer and Manfred Reindl. Wolfgang Kramer is one of the top boardgame designers in the world, but I had never heard of this game until I saw it on a shelf. Oh no, I'm falling behind boardgame trends. 

In Happy Fox there are only three types of cards - fox, goose and dog. No numbers, no suits. There are more geese than foxes or dogs. Every player has his own deck of cards, and the decks all have the same card distribution. The only difference is the card back colour. You have a hand of five cards. On your turn, you simply play one card. If it is a goose or a dog, you play it face-down before you, without letting anyone know what you have played. If it is a fox, it is played face-up, and you will go goose hunting. Beginning with the player on your left, you may reveal your opponents' cards. You go around the table revealing one card per player, and you can do this for as long as you want, even cycling back to the first player on your left. As long as the card you reveal is a goose, you are good. When you are happy with what you have, you may decide to retire your fox. You then take your fox and all the revealed geese and place them in your personal score pile. Now if at any point you reveal a dog, your fox will be captured by the dog. The dog owner takes your fox card and his dog and places them in his score pile. All geese revealed by your dog go to the score piles of their respective owners. You gain nothing, and even lose your fox. 

You play until everyone exhausts their decks and hand cards. All cards remaining before you go to your score pile. Everyone counts their score piles, and whoever has the most cards wins. 

The Play

This is an amazingly simple game. This is the kind of game which makes people think designing games is easy and they can do it too. Pfff... Despite so few rules, the game is very exciting. Your cards are mostly geese, and there's always some anxiety when you place a goose. Playing a fox and going hunting is exciting, but it is also nerve-wracking. After you catch a goose, you will hesitate about whether to go for the next one. If the next card is a dog, you lose all your geese accumulated so far. This is a painful decision to make. 

If you want to, you can card count. If you know someone has run out of dogs, you'll know his cards are absolutely safe. If you find most players have used up their foxes, you know it's safe to play your geese. Often you want to hold on to a fox until the right moment. Wait for more geese to be out before you play your fox. Hopefully you'll have a bigger catch. 

There is an optional rule where everyone removes a few cards randomly before the game starts. This way you can't card count accurately. 

The Thoughts

I was already impressed with the game after reading the rules. Only three types of cards, and such simple rules, but this is such a fun game. So much emotion in such a spartan game. This works well as a children's game, a family game and a party game. To gamers this is interesting too. If you get serious about the game (like gamers tend to do), you can think about how to bluff and how to trap. You can card count too. There is certainly luck in the game. Sometimes even the first card your fox flips is a dog. This is not at all uncommon. It's always a joy when someone else's fox gets caught. It means the geese you think you have lost come back to you. Everyone (except the fox owner) cheers the dog owner. This is a clever little game with plenty of surprises and excitement.