In Happy Pigs you run a pig farm.
Look after them, care for them, sell them…
Players compete on raising healthy pigs by executing strategic combinations of “Actions” (Feed, Mate, Purchase, and Sell) and “Tools” (Vaccines, Nutritional Supplements and Birth Amulets) for each round. Both the frequency to take these “Actions” and the number of “Tools” a player can purchase are restricted by the number of players choosing to take the same action in any given round.
Happy Pigs Gameplay
Everyone gets a farm board and some cash. In turn order, players can buy 5 items choosing from Pigs, Farms, Food, Vaccines or “Amulets of Life” to get things started.
Then the game is played over several phases, mostly
simultaneously played.
1 – Season Card – Turn over the top Season card. These start in Spring and go to Winter and show the same 4 actions that players have available but with different values. The number shows the times this action can be taken this round and the bottom is the end of the round seasonal effect.
Although some have an effect that lasts for the entire round instead.
2 – Select Action – Everyone has a set of 4 tiles with each of the available actions on. Each player secretly chooses an action tile face down.
3 – Reveal Actions – Players reveal their tokens and work out how many actions they take. The actions are divided by the players that picked them.
For example, the above card shows the Mate action x9 so that action is available 9 times this round. So if 3 players pick it, they’ll do it 3 times each.
4 – Take Actions – Players now take the action they chose a number of times after working it out in phase 3.
Actions
Feed – Once per round per Pig in your field, exchange it with a Pig tile the next size up.
Mate – Only for Average or Big Pigs (The grown-ups), once per round. Add a Piglet to your field for each pair of grown-up Pigs you have.
Buy – Pig, Field or Item. A Vaccine allows you to flip over a pig to its vaccinated side. A Dietary Supplement lets you grow a Pig one size. The Amulet of Life, when mating, gives you a small pig instead of a piglet, awwww.
Sell – A Pig for its current price.
5 – Apply Seasonal Effect – Apply the effect on the card. These will give players a bonus. For example, the card above gives each player free ‘Mate’ action for each pair of adult piggies.
After applying the effect you discard the card and reveal the next one. If the next card is the first card of the next season, players lose all of their unvaccinated Pigs.
After the last season card is played, players sell all Vaccinated Pigs and the player with the most money wins.
Theme
I mean I guess… You Buy Pigs, Breed Pigs, Vaccinate Pigs, Feed Pigs, Grow Pigs and Sell Pigs… That’s it!
Setup & Rulebook
Easy peasy. Although there is a tonne of stuff so you can either make it look untidy, or you can take time and use pots and stuff. I just dumped it on the table.
The rulebook is an Iello rulebook, so it’s OK by me.
Components & Artwork
Coins and tokens. Everything looks nice and feels nice. As I mentioned, there is plenty of it.
The ‘Square’ art is good fun, and cute. I love the iccle piggies.
Ease of Teaching & Accessibility
Teaching is easy. Everything is very straightforward. Explaining how actions are divided among the players and what happens if there is an odd number is the tough part.
But it’s not exactly difficult.
It’s a very accessible game. It’s a family weight game really so it should be accessible.
Happy Pigs Summary
I thought this was OK.
It’s cute and fairly tactical. You need to look at what other people might be taking as their next action so you can pick the best one for yourself.
There’s also that bluff double-bluff element to consider.
But, it is fairly repetitive and a little bit light for me. Great for families and casual games but not something I’d choose to play.
Oddly enough, Roll for the Galaxy is the game I would choose to play instead. Purely for the secret action selection while piggy (HA!) backs off the other player’s potential choices.
In RftG you’re looking to see which players will pick which actions so you don’t have to. In Happy Pigs, you want to make sure you’re getting 4-5 actions a turn, not splitting 9 actions 3 ways.
But it’s a good family game.
Jesta ThaRogue