9 Card Animal Shade-Off

Please note that this is a digital product. Your game is delivered as a PDF file which you can download. No physical product is delivered.

Aim of the Game

To shade in the most tangram animals by being lucky as to what 9 suits are called from a packet of 12 playing cards.

Full Details

Each player has a playing board that contains six tangram animals. These are labelled A to F. Each animal is made up of the same seven geometric shapes. Each shape contains a playing card suit. The animals and suits on all the playing boards are different. This allows the game to be played simultaneously by all players.

Each player is given a pencil. They will be shading in the various shapes making up each animal.

From a pack of playing cards the party host extracts the kings, queens and jacks. Only these 12 cards are used for the game. They are given a shuffle.

The first game uses animal A. The party host deals cards one at a time from their pack of 12 calling out loud the name of the suit. If a player's animal contains a shape bearing that suit they should shade it in. They can only shade in one shape per card. If they have no shapes bearing that suit or have already shaded in all shapes bearing that suit then they must wait for the next card.

The party host calls out nine cards in this manner. After the ninth card anyone who has shaded in their entire animal scores 1 point.

Note that it is not a competition to see who completes their animal first. The challenge is to complete the animal within nine cards.

Depending on the number of players it may be that no one completes their animal in nine cards. When this happens the party host announces the suit of the tenth card. Any player who completes their animal with this card scores a point.

The game is repeated for animals B, C, D and E.

The highest scoring players now take place in a tie break using animal F. The cards are dealt once again but this time the first person to complete their animal (regardless of the number of cards it takes) is crowned the winner.

Small and Big Party Versions

As well as the extra game boards these versions include a suggested script for explaining the game's rules to your guests.

Personalised Versions

In the product pictures you can see that each of the 20 different animals is owned by a specific person. E.g. Henry's camel, Olivia's rabbit. In the personalised version of these games the owners of the 20 different animals will be your party guests.