Capybara 'n' Capybara

Designed by Hisashi Hayashi, Capybara 'n' Capybara is a drafting and set collection card game with a twist. It's published by Mandoo. For reasons we have yet to fathom, the theme involves a bizarre mix of pumpkins, monkeys and, of course, those eponymous capybaras.

The 2-4 players have their own individual tableau of capybara cards. You position your monkey card above your capybaras, and the number of cards you can draft from a central display and add to your tableau depends on how far to the left you move your monkey: move one step to draw one card, two steps to draw three cards, or three steps for five cards. Alternatively you can score a pumpkin card either from your hand or the central display. The pumpkin cards show specific combinations of different capybara cards and you usually have to move your monkey past all of those on the card in order to score it.

You will obviously want to move your monkey back in order to continue to score pumpkin cards but it takes a full turn to move your monkey back three places (four once you've scored three pumpkin cards and your baby monkey has matured). The game therefore tempers the set collection and card drafting with an ebb and flow balance. Adding multiple cards is at the expense of a farther movement of your monkey so can cost you a turn to recover, and it's part of the tension of the game that two or more players may be aiming for a particular pumpkin card in the display so there can be a race to be the player who claims it.

The 'theme' may seem like an odd muddle but the game itself is straightforward and easy to grok. It makes the game very playable as a children's and family game. The end game is triggered when a player scores their fifth pumpkin card, so you can expect games to run for a filler-length 20-30 minutes.

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