We’ve all been there… chickens running hither and thither as we try to keep them safely confined to their coop without them succumbing to the local leash of foxes who have more sinister ideas…
Introduction
I’m keeping the bandwagon rolling for the Pack O Games reviews and we’re coming to one where I probably have some more mixed feelings than others. But we’ll get to that below. Sly is definitely on the simpler end of learning/playing which is good and I think it does a good job of the sort of bluffing/mind games element too. I’m not 100% sure what I’d call the core mechanism of this exactly, but there’s definitely something about trying to fake out your opponents along the way.
We’ve all been there… chickens running hither and thither as we try to keep them safely confined to their coop without them succumbing to the local leash of foxes who have more sinister ideas…
Introduction
I’m keeping the bandwagon rolling for the Pack O Games reviews and we’re coming to one where I probably have some more mixed feelings than others. But we’ll get to that below. Sly is definitely on the simpler end of learning/playing which is good and I think it does a good job of the sort of bluffing/mind games element too. I’m not 100% sure what I’d call the core mechanism of this exactly, but there’s definitely something about trying to fake out your opponents along the way.
Setup
Fairly easy to get on the table this one, and it really doesn’t need a lot of space at all so I’d say you could play this pretty much anywhere. Sly would fit on an aeroplane tray table (and I speak from recent holiday experience), though I make no promises about cards staying where they should during more turbulent flights.
Anyway… you lay out hen house cards that depend on the number of players and give each person a set of hens numbered 1-6 and a fox in one colour. That’s it. I think beyond NUT, this might be one of the simplest in this series to get up and running.
And now the mind games commence
There’s definitely more strategy to Sly than you think, but I suspect your experience of it will partly depend on who you play with, and how many players you have in total.
Your turn consists of one of the following three actions:
1. Lay a card (geddit?) face-down beside one of the spaces next to the hen house
2. Expose a card – pick one that you believe to be an opponent’s fox and reveal it. If it is a fox (belonging to anyone) you place it face up in front of you. If it’s a hen, it becomes safe (more on this below)
3. Reveal cards (which is different to expose) – pick cards around the hen house equal to the number of players and flip them over one at a time, with the outcome depending on exactly what is revealed. Let’s look at these in a little more detail
Revealing cards and safety
Let’s talk about safety first… when a card is classed as safe, it remains face-up and cannot be removed from its space in the hen house, can’t be eaten by a fox, and has some endgame points attached to it. Despite what you might think, the points relate to its position in the hen house, not the value on the card (for the most part…). That can take a little getting used to at first so it’s worth flagging.
Taking the “Reveal” option gives you one of three possible outcomes:
a) All the cards revealed are hens. The highest ranked hen (i.e. the one with the largest number printed on it) becomes safe and the rest go back to their respective players. If there’s a tie for highest ranked hen, the current player breaks ties, then following to the left
b) All the cards revealed are foxes. They all go back to their respective player with no action
c) The revealed cards are a mixture of foxes and hens. Whoever owns the fox gets to ‘eat’ the highest ranked hen (placing it in front of them). The highest ranked remaining hen becomes safe. The fox and the other hens go back to their respective players. As with the hens, if multiple foxes are revealed, the active player breaks ties
The game ends in one of two ways. Either at the start of a players’ turn, they only have one card in hand (in which case flip all the cards, foxes score nothing, hens all become safe) or at the start of a turn, all the spaces in the hen house are occupied and all cards are face up
Scoring up
It’s a pretty simple one to score (simplicity generally being the theme here). Each face-up hen you have at the hen house scores 1-4 points depending on its position. Any hens you’ve eaten with your fox are worth their printed value (but if you’ve accidentally eaten your own, they’re worth negative points), and if you’ve successfully captured an opponents’ fox with the “Expose” action, it’s worth points equal to the number of players.
Final thoughts
For all its simplicity, I’m a little mixed on Sly. I definitely don’t think it shines with only two players, and given that Perplext Games aren’t shy about having rather specific player counts on some games, I think there’s a strong argument to say this might benefit from being a 3-4 player game. With two players there’s a lot less hidden information – you know what you’ve put where and you’re only ever trying to second guess one other person.
It’s definitely more fun and less predictable with 3 or 4 and I think that’s where the strategy starts to shine a bit. Obviously you want your higher ranked hens on the higher scoring spaces so if they get incorrectly exposed they’re safe and worth big points. But there’s a gamble that on a reveal action, they get eaten by a fox, gifting your opponent a lot of points, or worse, accidentally impacting your own score quite a lot. With two players that’s pedestrian, with more people you have to think and choose your actions more carefully.
Sly is not my favourite in this series, but it also has some pretty strong competition for that title. It’s fun enough, quick to play and you can lay it out almost anywhere, I’m just not sure it’s as fun as the others. Or perhaps more accurately, I don’t think I get as much out of this one as I do from others.
Zatu Review Summary
Zatu Score
70%
