Goat ‘n’ Goat

Three mountains stand tall in front of the goats, who must try to combine their efforts to climb these daunting mountains together. Can you lead the goats to the highest parts of the mountains?

In Goat ‘n’ Goat, a.k.a. やぎ山, you want to combine your goats to conquer the tallest mountains possible, but goats only like to line up in certain ways. The game includes goat cards in three colors, with numbers ranging from 1-5 and with more low numbers than high; the game also includes mountain cards in three colors, with values ranging from 3-9.

Players start with 3-5 cards in hand, and six cards are laid face up on the table. On a turn, you play one or more cards from your hand that all have the same number, whether of one color or more. If you don’t have cards of this color or all the cards of this color are equal to or less than the number played, then you add these new cards to the stacks in front of you, with each color going into its own stack; if the number played is lower than the top card in a color stack, then you place all previously played cards of this color in front of you face down as penalty points, then start a new stack of this color with the cards just played.

You then choose as many cards from the row of six as the value of the card(s) just played. The quantity of cards played doesn’t matter — only the digit on those cards! Whether you play a single 1 or five 1s, you draw only one card. If you now have more than eight cards in hand, you must discard down to eight cards, keeping all discarded cards as penalty points.

On a turn, after playing cards, you can choose to discard cards of a color to collect a mountain card in the same color that has a lower value. Thus, to collect the 3 blue mountains, you must discard four or more blue goat cards that you’ve collected in front of you.

Once you’ve gone through the deck twice (with 3-5 players) or once (with two players), the game ends. You tally all mountain points you’ve collected, then lose 1 point for each penalty card in front of you. Whoever has the highest score wins!