Capybara Crush: Review

Capybara Crush: Review

Information:

Mechanics: Drafting, Set Collection,
Player Age: 8+
Player Count: 1 - 4 Players

Game Designer: Dylan Coyle

Game Artist: Andrei Ebreo
BGG Weight: 1.00

Publisher: Charming Games Collective

Time to Play: 20 - 45 Minutes 
Year Published: 2025

Introduction:

A flood has commenced and it is up to the capybaras to save all of the friendly critters. Each capybara can hold three critters (one card) above them. By the end of the game, players want to create continuous chains of the same creatures across the adjacent capybaras. Players can manipulate the cards to help their strategy by using stars to access any of the three actions in the middle of the table (discussed later). 

Game Anatomy:

Critter Cards:

Critter Cards can be placed face down as a new capybara. Only 8 capybara spots will exist for each player throughout the game.

Each critter card contains one of the three background scenes and three animals stacked together. If played face up above an existing capybara as a creature card, it will be used to create continuous chains of similar animals. At the end of the game, the longest path for each scenery and each creature will be scored. A creature path is a continuous line of the same animal directly next to each other or one critter below or above.

Stars:

At any point, a player can only have three unused stars on their capybara cards. These stars can be used as free actions on a player's turn to pay for one of the actions displayed on the score track. These are used mostly to rearrange the played cards to elongate the creature paths. Whenever a new capybara is placed throughout the game it creates a new place for a critter to be placed. A star will be placed with them if one is available.

Setup:

- Make a score track by using ‘sweep, flip, shift’ and the capybara Crush card for your first game. These star activations can be swapped out with others in subsequent games. 
- Shuffle the critter deck and make a display by revealing five cards.
- Place two unused scoring cards face-down for each player and one favourite capybara card to create each player's starting line.
- Each capybara will now gain a star and each player will gain a card.

How to Play: 

Turns will continue in a clockwise order until a player starts their turn with 8 capybara and 8 critters played. On a turn, the active player draws a capybara card from the display or the top of the deck and refills if necessary. They will then choose one out of their two cards to either play face-down as a capybara or face-up on top of a capybara as a critter. If they choose, they can pay any amount of stars to activate free actions.

Once the game ends the scoring will commence (Easier with the point tracker):

- Points equal to each animal's continuous chain.
- Points equal to each background's continuous run.
- Points equal to the number of stars a player has remaining. 
-How many cards feature the favourite critter of each player.

Final Thoughts:

- Game is easy to play and remember but challenging to optimise peak scores.
- A good introduction to optimisation puzzles for families or filler fun.
- The bonus for the same backgrounds isn't as challenging to gain as it feels it should be as all three backgrounds score based on length. 

Capybara Crush is a good game as an introduction to optimisation puzzles for families, or an in-between to cleanse the palate. Each turn is straightforward with players choosing between two cards, and determining how best to continue multiple paths at once. Some elements like the background and favourite critter is easier to achieve than expected, but balancing chains of multiple animals at once is quite challenging. The star actions add another layer of decisions but they don't always feel too unique, and players can easily win using none at all. If you enjoy optimisation puzzles and would like to add a quicker one to your collection then this game fits perfectly.

Click...feed the addiction: 

Capybara Crush on BGG

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