No, that isn’t misspelled. I really did mean “Bearicade,” not “barricade.” That’s because Mom and I recently played a wonderful card game called Bearicades, about forests and scared prey, and big, scary lumberjacks and equally big and scary predators, but they happen to be playing defense and trying to protect the prey, so they count as the good guys. You know something’s gone really bad to get the predators and the prey to team up!
So there are these cute animals, all innocent and stuff (yeah right, like that snake wasn’t just waiting for a lumberjack to bite!) that are specially grouped into forests. You can choose whether you want to play beginner style by color, or by ring numbers. Each has a special ability, which will be activated as specified on the card (sometimes it’s when the animal runs away, when you Flip the card, or some, like the Salmon, can just be activated whenever).
Then there are the lumberjacks. The active player for the turn (designated by the Frog) draws the top lumberjack and places him in the middle. But of course, no lumberjack lumberjacks by himself, so each lumberjack card lists a certain amount of friends of his who also get drawn. The active player then gets to distribute the lumberjacks between the forests in whatever manner they like, the only rule being that each has to have one.
Then comes the predator phase. There are some really cool predators in the deck, like Cougars, Bats, Foxes, and Angry Bees, but most of the predators are Bearicades. No, not “bears,” “Bearicades,” named as such because they can block a lumberjack, leaving both in play but, at least for the time being, neutralizing the threat. Bearicades also have abilities that can be utilized if they are discarded, depending on the species of Bearicades, including Flipping an animal, forcing lumberjacks to Run Away, or allowing a trade of themselves for another Bearicade in the discard. Other predators can do similar to the latter two, though some allow a switch for any predator in the discard, instead of just Bearicades.
In the sad event that a lumberjack is unstoppable and reaches your forest, you must choose one of your four animals to Run Away as a result. The good news is, the lumberjack follows it over to the discard pile. Some animals also have effects centered around running away, making them the strategic choice, depending on the situation. The bad news is, that animal is out of the game for good, and you only have four of them, so you have to be careful!
Once all of the lumberjacks have been taken care of in some way or another, whether they’re staring down a Bearicade or the back of another lumberjack in the discard, it becomes Night. The player with the Frog draws one Predator for each player still in the game, getting first pick as to which one they want. Each player gets one Predator to add to their hand, and then the Frog passes and the next long day of fighting off the evil forces of humanity begins.
