Crazy Race Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Setup
• Gameplay
• The Lion Needs New Animals!
• Game End
• The Animal Cards
• Special Rules for 2 Players

Components

• 1 game board (in four parts)
• 13 double-sided track sheets (with 3 spaces each)
• 5 starting animal cards (donkeys)
• 5 cart cards
• 23 animal cards
• 5 "race carts"
• 5 palm trees
• 14 dice
• 1 starting player marker

Before playing for the first time, carefully punch all the pieces out of their frames. The frames and the four board cutouts can then be discarded.

Setup

• Assemble the game board from the four parts and place it in the middle of the table.
• Place four of the 13 sheets, just as they come, into the four recesses of the game board. Place the other nine sheets around the outside of the game board. It doesn't matter which side of the sheets faces up. You've now built a random race course that will look completely different again in your next game.
• Place the five palm trees on the five correspondingly marked spaces of the game board. The palm trees each mark the end of a stage. The fifth palm tree stands next to the finish line and marks the end of the race.
• Shuffle the 23 animal cards and place them as a face-down stack next to the game board. Reveal as many cards from it as there are players, and lay them face up next to the first palm tree. These are the crazy critters that will pull your race carts in the second stage …
• Set out all 14 dice in the middle of the game board.
• Grab the wooden "race cart" and the matching cart card of your chosen color.
• Shuffle all five donkey cards face down, even with fewer than five players. Each of you receives one random one of these five cards and attaches it to your cart card. Now place your race cart on the space next to the starting space indicated on your donkey card. For example, if you have the 8-donkey, place your race cart next to starting space 2.

If you are fewer than five players, put the undistributed race carts, donkey cards, and cart cards back in the box.

• The player whose race cart is furthest ahead receives the starting player marker.

Make way! The race can begin …

Before you can go tearing through the zoo, a few words about the track, the dice, and the draft animals:

The track shows five different types of spaces, represented by different colors. For each type there are dice of the same color. The dice have different pip values, which you can also see neatly listed on your cart card, including the average value of each die. So the beige dice show the lowest pip values (namely only 0, 1, and 2) and have an average value of only 1, whereas the brown dice go up to 6, with an average value of 3, which unfortunately makes them rather unpredictable dice!

Here we go! The first stage can begin …

Gameplay

The game is played over five stages. Each stage in turn consists of several dice rounds. At the end of each stage, everyone gets a new animal card, but more on that later …

The starting player begins, then play continues clockwise around the table until the stage ends.

When it's your turn, you first decide how far you want to advance on your turn: for each space in front of your race cart that you want to move onto, you must take a die of the matching color from the middle of the board. Then you roll all the dice you've chosen at once.

Before taking the dice, be sure to consider the traits of your draft animal, especially the value of its "limit":

• Limit — This value is your current limit, which you should ideally never exceed with a dice roll.
• Ability — This shows (not always) a special ability of your animal. The donkeys don't have such an ability yet.
• Bonus — This bonus indicates how many extra spaces you may move your race cart forward at the very end of the game.

An example best explains how this works: let's say you're the blue player (with a limit of 7) and you want to travel the next four spaces. Then you must take a beige, a green, a grey, and finally a turquoise die from the middle of the board and roll them all at once, hoping that the rolled total doesn't exceed your limit of 7.

A little tip on the side: since the average value of these four dice adds up to exactly 7 (1 + 1.5 + 2.5 + 2), you're neither too bold nor too timid, so it could just work out! Good luck, anyway …

Should you ever have the truly rare pleasure of wanting to choose more dice of one color than are available, e.g. a fourth beige die, then in that case take a die of the next higher color instead (here, a green one). Should you (be crazy enough to) want to use a third brown die, take a grey one in that case.

When moving, you don't take the other race carts into account (unless your draft animal is the buffalo; see the animal cards). Should you land on an occupied space, always place your race cart at the very front of that space.

After rolling, one of the following can happen:

• The total of the four dice is less than or equal to your limit. Let's say you rolled a total of 6. Success! Now you may move your race cart forward exactly the four spaces you rolled for. Watch out! So you don't move six spaces (as the rolled total might suggest), but only four, because you only used four dice, one for each of the four spaces in front of your race cart! Got it? It's actually quite simple …
• The total of the four dice is higher than your limit, e.g. you rolled a total of 9. In that case, you've unfortunately messed it up! As a consolation, you may move your cart forward one space (in the example, onto the beige space), completely regardless of how many dice you rolled and by how much you exceeded your limit.

Afterward, put all the dice you used back in the middle of the board, so that the next player around the table can easily reach them too.

You continue rolling dice this way, taking turns, until at least one of you has raced past the next palm tree. That player moves as far as their dice allow, just as usual. The space the palm tree stands on is of course not counted.

Important! The current round is always played to its end, so that everyone has had an equal number of dice turns. You can also tell by the starting player marker, since the current round always ends there.

Now that's enough — of this stage!

The Lion Needs New Animals!

Next to the palm tree in question, there are already face-up animal cards laid out, one for each of you. Now the player who is furthest behind is the first allowed to pick a new animal. They unhitch their donkey (which has really worked hard enough by this point!) from their cart and place the card face down in front of themselves (important for the bonus spaces at the end of the game!). Then they take the new animal of their choice and hitch it up.

A note for the especially clever: no, you may not simply take the animal, flip it over, and let your poor donkey keep slogging along for another stage — every new animal must always replace the old one and be hitched up!

After that, the second-to-last player does the same, and so on, until finally the leading player takes and hitches up the last animal. In addition, the leader also receives the starting player marker, i.e. they begin the next stage. Play then continues clockwise from them.

Now, from the face-down stack, lay out one new animal per player face up next to the next palm tree, so you can already see what awaits you there!

Please note the special rules for playing with 2 players here (see below).

You play all further stages the same way, except for the very last one — for that one you can skip revealing new animals, since you won't need them after crossing the finish line …

Game End

As soon as the very last round has been played to its end (that is, the one in which at least one of you (with an animal roar?) has crossed the finish line), the race isn't quite over yet — it's about to get really exciting one more time: everyone takes their five animal cards and moves their cart forward by all the bonus values shown on them (bottom right).

Tip: if you don't do this all at once, but instead take turns going around the table and each of you uses only one of your remaining cards at a time, you won't know exactly who has actually won until the very last card is played. Watch out, the tension is rising!

By the way, should several carts end up tied for the lead after everyone has used their five animal cards, the winner among those players is whoever holds the donkey card showing the highest limit value.

Now that's enough — of the race!

The Animal Cards

The animal cards are largely self-explanatory, but here are a few additional explanations and examples anyway. As a general rule, every animal's ability may only be used once per round.

So, for example, anyone who has the crocodile and may reroll any brown dice may, after their roll, reroll only one or even both brown dice at once, if they used them. And then again in the next round, if desired and needed …

Giraffe — If you have the giraffe, you only get the higher limit of 10 if your race cart is in last place when it's your turn. If at that point at least one other race cart is behind yours, your limit is only 7.

Kangaroo — If you have the kangaroo, you don't decide on a travel distance at the start of your turn; instead, you roll the first die, then, depending on the result, the second one, and so on. In the example above, you would first roll a beige die, then only afterward a green one, then a grey one, and so on — always waiting to see its pip value before deciding whether to keep rolling or to stop. Should you exceed your limit this way at some point, you've of course messed it up just as usual! Serves you right …

Albatross, sea eagle, pterosaur, … (we're not entirely sure ourselves which animal is tugging on the leash there …) — every die you roll counts for you with a pip value of at most 2. If you rolled, say, 3 - 4 - 5 - 0 - 1, you weren't just quite bold but also lucky, because the total that counts is 7 (2 - 2 - 2 - 0 - 1) — just barely staying within your limit! The same applies, by the way, to the chimpanzee.

Hyena — If you have the hyena, in addition to your normal turn you move your race cart forward one space every time (so, out of turn!) whenever one of your fellow players rolls a bust. Feel free to laugh spitefully like a hyena while doing so — that will definitely please your fellow players even more … If your cart passes a palm tree as a result, the current round is finished as usual.

Buffalo — If you have the buffalo, you ignore all spaces in front of your cart that are occupied by other carts, i.e. you simply skip over them without using a die for it. Should you roll a bust, you move forward to the next space as usual, regardless of whether it's occupied or not. Let's go back to our favorite example. If you were the blue player, you would now only need a green, a grey, and another green die to advance five spaces. But should your roll exceed your limit of 7, you only move onto the beige space (there, then, in front of the red cart).

Three meerkats — If you have the three meerkats, you have no limit for this stage; instead, you roll all three beige dice each round and move your race cart forward by the rolled total. Should you roll three zeros, you naturally don't move forward either. However, this does not count as a bust, meaning you may not move forward one space in that case either (and the spiteful hyena also comes away empty-handed in that case).

Five chameleons — If you have the five chameleons, you have no limit for this stage; instead, you roll one die per color and then move your race cart forward by the single highest pip value rolled. Should you roll, say, 1 - 3 - 0 - 4 - 4, you move forward 4 spaces. Should you (be that unlucky and) roll five zeros, you naturally don't move forward either. However, this does not count as a bust, meaning you may not move forward one space in that case either (and the spiteful hyena also comes away empty-handed in that case).

Hippopotamus — If you have the hippopotamus and are standing on a brown space at the start of your turn, you immediately move forward two spaces. Then you take your turn as usual.

Ibex — The same applies to the ibex on grey spaces.

Special Rules for 2 Players

Here, new animal cards are only ever revealed after a stage ends. Specifically, always two cards, plus one additional card for every three spaces that the trailing player is behind the leader (= +1 card for 1–3 spaces behind, +2 cards for 4–6 spaces, +3 cards for 7–9 spaces, and so on). From these two or more cards, the trailing player then picks one for themselves and one for their opponent! The remaining revealed animal cards are then set aside.

Examples:

1. B is on the same space behind A: B reveals 2 cards, takes one of them, and A gets the other.
2. B is eight spaces behind A: B reveals 2 + 3 = 5 cards, takes one of them, and then gives A one. The remaining 3 cards are discarded.