Bear beer deer ear tear

Don’t get drunk on the beer, especially if you are a deer. Bear might snack on your ear and the only thing you could do – is to shed a tear.

Players count: 2

Inventory:

Cards: 25 (5x of each kind).

Player aid: 2. 

Choosing the first player: Draw a cards until one of the players draws bear card. He will be the first player.

Preparation for the game. Mix the deck of card. Give each player 5 cards. The rest cards divide into 5 column (each should contain 3 cards) in the middle of the table. 

First player can start the game. 

Playing the game: Player during his turn can place the card or claim a column. To claim a column player needs 3 cards of the same kind. He can claim any unclaimed column. When claiming a column player places three cards on his side next to the row he wants to claim. He gets all the cards that are in that column. 

When playing a card, opposing player can choose to counter the card (he doesn’t need to if he doesn’t want). After opposing player made his decision the card actions are applied. 

If after card actions any unclaimed column is empty, it’s refiled with all cards from the trash. If there is more than one unclaimed column empty, when cards from the trash are divided between columns.

Cards. There are five different cards in the deck:

Bear:

    • (No counter card) active player takes two cards from the opponent

    • Bear – both cards go to trash

    • Tear – active players give opponent one card, tear and bear goes to trash.

Beer:

    • (No counter card) players exchange hands.

    • Beer – active player gets both beer cards.

    • Tear – exchange half of the cards (counting active player cards rounded down)

Deer:

    • (No counter card) active player takes two cards from any unclaimed columns (can be the same, or two different ones)

    • Deer – active player gets two deer cards, opponent takes two cards from any unclaimed columns (can be the same, or two different ones)

    • Bear – opponent gets dear card, bear goes to trash, active player gets nothing.

Ear:

    • (No counter card) Opponent reads his cards from left to right fast

    • Ear – both player read their cards from left to right fast at the same time

    • Dear – opponent gets ear and deer cards

Tear: 

    • (No counter card) active player take two cards from his hand and exchanges them with any cards from unclaimed column (can be the same, or two different ones) without first looking at the cards from the column. 

    • Beer – Both players exchange one card from their hand with the card from any unclaimed column. Active player does exchange first. 

    • Ear – active player reads his cards from left to right fast.

End of the game. Game can end in victory or loss (obviously).

Loss: if at the beginning of the round player can’t make valid move or at the end of the round player doesn’t have any cards in his hand – he lost the game.

Victory: if player claimed three columns he won the game.

Design decisions: So there is no theme. It’s light, silly tag of war game. 

Art. As always art is made by me. Color palette feels a bit of, sorry for that. For this game I would like to have some crazy, silly art, it would be nice if each card had different image. Yes, there must be five bear cards, but it could be the same bear doing five different actions. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?

Originally I wanted to add explanations of counter actions on the cards, but it would take to much space, cards would have to be rather big. So instead I added to symbols which shows how the card could be countered, but the explanation of the countering should be provided in the players aid. 

Would you like to playtest it? PDF file  with game cards. Any feedback is welcome.