The Big Pig Game

The Big Pig Game Rulebook

Table of Contents

Game Components

3 Food Boards (one board per meal: Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)
1 Game Board
16 Snack Tokens
192 Food Pieces
9 Character Cards
Actions Deck (60 cards)
Items Deck (40 cards)
Bad Things Deck (10 cards)
Very Bad Things Deck (10 cards)
9 Bonus Cards
8 Encourage Tokens (+6 and +4 sides)
4 Reminder Cards
1 Car Token

Food Boards

Each food board is a 4 by 4 grid of spaces. Each space shows a number, and the foods on a board are shown in the grid as pictures. The Breakfast board shown in the components list has four foods: Avocado Toast (Savory), Oatmeal (Healthy), Doughnut (Sweet), and Pancakes (Sweet).

Food Pieces

Food pieces are placed on top of the foods on a food board. Each food piece shows a number. The backs of the food pieces have a diagram of where they are placed on the food board.

Reminder Cards

The Reminder Cards summarize a round:

Play a "Bad Things" card (If Applicable)
Add Items to the counter
Players take turns
Move the car
End of Round Cleanup
- Remove all snack tokens from each player's character card.
- Discard each Bad Things card in play.
- Discard each item from the counter.
- Players may discard any number of cards from hand and then draw or discard to hand size.
- Start a new round!

Setup

1. Place Foods

Choose a meal type (breakfast, lunch, or dinner) based on difficulty and place the food board for that meal in the center of the play area. If it is your first time playing, it is highly recommended to start with Breakfast. After placing the food board, find the "food pieces" for each of the foods on the board and place them on top of the food so that the pictures and numbers match. Any other food boards and food pieces will not be used this game and may be removed from play.

Difficulty	Meal Type
1 star	Breakfast
2 stars	Lunch
3 stars	Dinner

Backs of food pieces have a diagram of where they are placed on the food board.

2. Shuffle and Place Decks

Shuffle the "Bad Things," "Items," and "Actions" decks individually and place them on the play area. Make sure there is room for a discard pile for each of these decks. Leave room near the item deck for the "counter area" where item cards will be placed during the game.

Refilling Decks: If, at any point during the game, any of these decks run out of cards, take all of the cards in the respective discard pile, shuffle them, and place these cards face-down as a new deck.

3. Place game board and tokens

Place the game board on the playing surface and put the car token on the "start" space. Also, place the encourage tokens within easy reach.

4. Choose Characters

Each player chooses a character to play as by taking any one of the character cards and placing it in front of them face-up. After picking characters, each player takes 4 snack tokens and places them next to their character card.

Players draw a number of cards from the Actions deck equal to their character's hand size. These cards form their starting hand. Give each player a reminder card (if needed).

5. Select Bonuses

Randomly select one of the three "Sweet Bonus" cards and place it in the play area face-up. Do the same to select a "Savory Bonus" and "Healthy Bonus" card. Remove all other bonus cards from play.

The three bonus cards pictured in the rulebook's Example Setup page print the following text:

So Yummy! Each player takes a snack token off of their character card.
Secret Ingredient! Each player draws 2 action cards and gains +1 hunger for the remainder of the round.
Just One More Bite! Each player performs a ravenous munch! Start with the player who consumed the food and go clockwise.

The Example Setup page is otherwise an illustration with no further rules text.

Game Rounds

How to win

As soon as the players remove all of the food pieces from the food board, they immediately win the game! If the car token makes it to the house before the food is eaten, all of the players immediately lose.

Playing a Round

Each round has these steps, in order.

1. Play a "Bad Things" card

As time goes by, it is inevitable that Big Pig will do something bad. The round begins with any player revealing the top card of the Bad Things deck. Resolve the bad thing from the card. If it has a "lasting effect" place the card so it is easily visible by all players. These effects will be in place until the card is discarded (usually at the end of the round).

2. Add items to the counter

In this step, add a number of items to the counter equal to the number of players plus one (for example, in a 3-player game, add 4 items to the counter). To add an item to the counter, simply reveal the top card of the item deck, and place it in the counter area.

3. Players take turns

Each round, the team of players chooses a player to go first. That player takes their turn and play continues clockwise.

A player must perform one action during their turn. To perform an action, a player places one of their unused snack tokens on one of the four action spaces on their character card that does not already have a snack token and then performs that action. An explanation of actions starts on page 8 of the rulebook (see "Actions and Eating" below).

After performing their action, the player must draw or discard action cards from their hand until they have a number of cards equal to their hand size.

If it is ever the beginning of a player's turn and each character has 4 snack tokens on their character card, it is the end of the round! Go to the "Move the car" section of the game round.

Turn Example: For her turn, Yeti decides to use one of her "Play a Card" actions. First, she places a snack token on the action, then chooses to play the card "Super Munch!" After performing the action on the card, she has 2 cards in her hand but has a hand size of 3, so she draws a card. It is the end of her turn, and play continues with the player on her left.

Refill Hand on Your Turn Only: Remember, only draw or discard to your hand size on your own turn! If another player has you play or draw cards on their turn, you don't draw or discard to your hand size until the end of your next turn.

4. Move the car

After players are done taking all of their turns for the round, move the car token one space closer to the house on the game board. If it is the first round, you must determine the path depending on the number of players (there are different paths for 1, 2, 3, or 4 players). If the car makes it to the house, the family stops the critters from eating the rest of the food and all of the players lose!

Safe Spaces: If the car just moved onto a "Safe Space" in this step, don't play a Bad Things card next round. The Safe Space has saved you from a Bad Things card!

5. End of Round Cleanup

Follow these steps to end the round:

Remove all snack tokens from each player's character card.
Discard each Bad Things card in play.
Discard each item from the counter.
Each player may discard any number of cards from their hand and then draw or discard cards until they have a number of cards in their hand equal to their hand size.
Start a new round with step 1!

Character Cards

Each character card shows a name, a hunger value, a hand size (sometimes named flipper, hoof, or paw size), an item limit, four action spaces, and an ability. The rulebook's pages show these characters:

Big Pig - Hunger: 4. Hand Size: 3. Item Limit: 3. Ability: Big Pig gets +1 hunger when she munches sweet foods.
Rich Penguin - Hunger: 3. Flipper Size: 2. Item Limit: 3. Ability: Rich Penguin gets +1 hunger when he munches savory foods.
Yeti - Hunger: 3. Hand Size: 3. Item Limit: 4. Ability: When Yeti takes her first turn of the game, add 2 items to the counter.
Scout - Hunger: 5. Paw Size: 3. Item Limit: none (shown as "-"). Ability: Scout may not have any items in play and may gain food tokens from ravenous munches as if they were normal munches.
Hedgy - Hunger: 3. Hand Size: 3. Item Limit: 3. Ability: All players gain +1 hunger when they ravenous munch.
Lumpy Pig - Its ability reduces the cost to boost an action card by 1 (see "Boosting a Card" below).

The action spaces on each card are shown by icons on the card art. The rulebook does not print the full action text of every card slot, so the printed card is the reference for those.

The rulebook also has an example of a character card with its parts labeled. Its labels read: Name, Hunger, Hand Size (sometimes named flipper, hoof or paw size), Item Limit, Actions, and Ability.

Actions and Eating

These are detailed descriptions of some of the actions you may do during your turn:

Munch

When an action or card instructs you to munch, first pick a food to munch, then remove any number of pieces from that food (and only that food!) that have a total value equal to or less than your hunger. (Hunger is shown on your character card. Keep in mind your hunger can change depending on which food you munch, items you have in play, and bad things effects!) After removing the food pieces, place them on your character card. Food pieces can be used to boost your cards later! If you try to munch but don't have enough hunger to remove any of the food pieces that are left, you do not remove any food pieces for that munch.

Munch Example: Big Pig decides to munch the pancakes! Her ability gives her +1 hunger when eating sweet foods such as the pancakes, and her normal amount of hunger is 4. She also has sugar cubes that she got from a previous action which gives her +3. That's 8 hunger in total! She decides to remove the "5" and "3" value food pieces from the food because their total value is 8; that way she gets the most from her munch. Yummy! After removing the pieces from the food, they are placed on her character card to be used to boost cards later.

The Sugar Cubes item card in this example reads: "+3 hunger when munching sweet foods."

Ravenous Munch

A "Ravenous Munch" is a special kind of munch and works the same way as a "Munch," except food pieces removed from the food are removed from play instead of placed on your character card. Usually ravenous munches allow you to eat more food, but don't help with boosting cards later.

Consume a Food and Get a Bonus!

If the last piece from a food is removed, that food is consumed. Good job! When a sweet, savory, or healthy (but not spicy!) food has been consumed, everyone gets a bonus! Play the "Bonus" card for the type of food consumed and do what it says. (If playing on breakfast, play the sweet bonus for the first sweet food consumed and not the second.) There are no bonuses for spicy foods. If every food has been consumed, the players win the game!

Take an Item

Select an item card from the counter area and play it in front of your character card. If there are no items in the counter area, take the top card of the Items deck instead. These items give you special benefits like increasing your hunger.

If at any point you have more items than your item limit (shown on your character card), you must discard an item (you may choose to discard an item that you just received).

Encourage

When a card instructs you to encourage, place an encouragement token on any player's character card on the +4 or +6 side depending on how much you are encouraging for. The next time that character munches, they must add the amount of encouragement from each encouragement token they have to their hunger for that munch, then discard the tokens to the supply.

Play a Card

Choose and play an action card from your hand and do everything instructed on the top of the card. After performing the action, discard the card.

If, at any time, you try to play a card but have no cards in your hand, draw and play the top card of the Actions deck instead.

Playing Multiple Cards: Sometimes a card instructs you or another player to play a card. This can lead to many cards being played in one turn. If this happens, each of the cards being played remain "in play" and are not discarded until players are done playing cards, then they are all discarded at the same time in the order of the player's choosing.

Boosting a Card

When playing a card, you may choose to boost it! Every action card can be boosted. In order to boost a card, you must remove a number of food pieces from your character card equal to the boost cost of the action card (do not use the value on the food pieces! Just count the number of pieces). If you boost a card, you perform everything instructed under the bottom "Boosted Action" section of the card instead of the top "Action" section.

Boost Example: Lumpy Pig plays the card "Wholesome Munch" and decides to boost it! Normally the cost to boost is 2, but his ability reduces the cost by 1. He removes one food piece from his character card and can now perform a ravenous munch with +3 hunger when munching a healthy food instead of performing a normal munch with no bonus. Now he can munch more of that baked potato!

The Action card example "Wholesome Munch" shows: Munch! (Action) and, under Boosted Action, "Ravenous Munch with +3 hunger when munching a healthy food." Its Boost Cost is 2.

Open Hands

Players can look at each other's hands. In fact, it is usually a good idea to play with your hand face-up as that can often help other players make better decisions.

FAQ

If I play a card or perform an action that says "choose any player," or if I encourage a character, can I choose myself? Yes.

If I perform an action that lets me or another player play a card, can the new card be boosted? Yes, the player playing the new card may boost it, as long as they have the food pieces to do so!

If multiple action cards are discarded at once, which card should go on the top of the discard pile? Players can choose any of the discarded cards to be on the top.

If I do Scout's "Take one food piece from any one food" action does the food piece go on my character card? Yes.

I can't find my character's hand size. Where is it? Look for flipper, hoof, or paw size instead!

Is Big Pig a good pig? Yes! She just does bad things sometimes. ... A lot.

Very Bad Things

What are these very bad things cards?

What?

Yeah I have these cards that came in the box labeled "Very Bad Things".

Oh, uhh, don't worry about those!

But they look cute-

They are not cute! They are very bad!

I want to use them!

Okay well... If someone experienced with board games and eating lots of food wanted a really tough challenge... They could in theory swap out the "Bad Things" deck with the "Very Bad Things" deck and treat all of the Very Bad Things cards as if they are Bad Things cards for all rules and card effects... But they would only do that if they wanted to experience Big Pig having a really bad day.

You have been warned!

Difficulty with Very Bad Things:

Difficulty	Meal Type
2 stars	Breakfast
3 stars	Lunch
4 stars	Dinner