Bear Park (game)

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Bear park
Game data
author Phil Walker-Harding
graphic Klemens Franz
publishing company Lookout Games
Publishing year 2017
Art Placement game
Teammates 2 to 4
Duration 30 to 45 minutes
Age from 8 years

Awards

Bear Park is a board game by the Australian game designer Phil Walker-Harding . The game for two to four players, ages ten and up, was published by the game publisher Lookout Games in 2017 and was awarded the Austrian Spiel der Spiele prize in the same year . It is a placement game in which the players set up a bear zoo and thus have to score as many points as possible. The laying mechanism is comparable to that of games like Cottage Garden and Patchwork by Uwe Rosenberg .

Style of play

The game thematically deals with the construction of a bear park with different parts of the landscape and bear enclosures. These parts are so-called polyominos , i.e. areas that consist of several connected squares. By placing these elements, the players get the opportunity to get more parts and thus further expand their park. By expanding the park, players receive points and the winner is the player who has the most victory points at the end of the game.

In addition to the game instructions, the game material consists of:

  • 16 parking areas, four of which have an entrance area,
  • a storage plan as storage for green spaces, animal houses and outdoor enclosures,
  • 52 tiles with green spaces (snack bars, toilets, playgrounds and waterways),
  • 28 tiles with animal houses and 12 outdoor enclosures for polar bears, pandas, koalas and gobi bears,
  • 16 bear statues
  • 30 mission tiles

Preparations

At the beginning of the game, the tiles for the green areas, animal houses and outdoor enclosures are distributed on the supply board and each player is given a park area with an entrance area. The bear statues are placed next to the supply board in the order they are numbered. The number of tiles displayed and the number of bear statues depends on the number of players. The 12 parking areas without an entrance are laid out in two stacks of six parking areas each so that only the topmost area is visible. The players place their parking area in front of them, then a starting player is determined. This player gets a toilet, the second and third player in clockwise direction get a playground and the fourth gets a takeaway tile (with three players, the third player gets a takeaway tile instead of a playground).

Course of the game

Actions per turn
  • Place tiles
  • Evaluate symbols, take
    new tiles or landscape parts
  • Take the bear statue
    when a part of the landscape is complete

The players play in rounds beginning with the starting player and then in clockwise order. The game ends when a player has placed the last possible tile on his fourth part of the landscape. In each turn a player can place a tile and then evaluate the symbols that he has covered with it. If he succeeds in completing a part of the landscape with the exception of the excavation pit, he takes a bear statue and places it on the pit.

In order to place a tile, a player may turn it around and turn it over. The tile must be placed appropriately on the fields of the park, it must neither protrude nor overlap with other tiles, but may extend over several landscape parts. It must be adjacent to a tile that is already on the board and the printed pit area must not be covered. When the tile has been discarded, the symbols covered by it are evaluated:

  • the wheelbarrow allows the player to take a green space tile,
  • the concrete mixer allows the player to take the top animal house tile from a stack,
  • the excavator allows the player to take any outdoor enclosure tile
  • the construction team allows the player to take one of the two parts of the landscape on top and attach it to the landscape already on display. The part must be placed flush and must not be lower than the entrance, the symbols must be shown correctly. Each player may own a maximum of four landscape parts.

When, after placing a tile, a player has covered a part of the landscape with the exception of the excavation pit and thus completed it, he takes the bear statue with the highest value and uses it to cover the pit hole. If a player cannot place a tile in his round, he must pass and is given a green area of ​​his choice, which is put in the supply and can only be used in the next round.

End of game and scoring

The game ends as soon as a player has completed all four of his parking lots. Then it is each player's turn and the game ends. All points of the enclosure and the bear statues are added to the scoring, the winner is the player with the highest total. In the event of a tie, the sum of the values ​​on the tiles that are still in the players' supply decides and if there is another tie there are several winners.

Variant with order plate

For experienced players, a variant of the game with the mission tiles included in the game is recommended. For this purpose, three of the ten types of order cards are selected before the game and placed next to the game board with the highest value facing up as an open card pile. A player who fulfills the required task in the game can take the topmost card on the table and receives the points in the final scoring. A player may only take a maximum of one tile of each type.

Reception and evaluation

reviews
Meta page rating
BoardGameGeek 7.4 out of 10 points
brettspielbox.de 7.4 out of 10 points

Bear Park was developed by the Australian game designer Phil Walker-Harding and published in 2017 by the game publisher Lookout Games . In the same year he was awarded the main prize at the Austrian game prize game of games . The game was also released in 2017 in an English, Polish and Portuguese version for the Brazilian market. Shortly after the publication, an error in the graphics was identified and corrected by the publisher.

The game was mostly positively discussed in various reviews. In the games database BoardGameGeek , Bärenpark recorded an average rating of 7.4 (out of 10) with around 930 reviews (as of July 2017). The portal brettspielbox.de rated the game with 8.5 out of 10 points and emphasized above all that it is “easy to play” and that it is “suitable for family and connoisseur players” in its various forms.

supporting documents

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g game instructions Bear Park at Lookout Games ; accessed on July 23, 2017.
  2. ↑ Versions of Imhotep in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on July 23, 2017.
  3. ↑ Blame the Koala; Print & Play version, correction by Lookout Games; accessed on July 23, 2017.
  4. ↑ Ratings & Comments for Bear Park in the board game database BoardGameGeek (English); accessed on July 23, 2017.
  5. ↑ Bear Park on brettspielbox.de, June 4, 2017; accessed on July 23, 2017.

Web links