This was a recent Christmas gift to me. Our friends the Kirks introduced us to this game months ago, and it's been on my gift list ever since. Barenpark is a rather compelling and addictive game, or at least I and my family members are finding it to be such so far. There are various elements to try to balance as you move toward your goal of most victory points, and the timing of the choices you make impacts your score as well, so it's definitely and engaging game. The idea is that you are constructing a zoo of bears - polar bears, panda bears, kodiak bears, koala bears (not really bears, but OK) - a bear park or "barenpark." Actually, each card represents a different country/language, which you can see from the titles in the last few pictures on this post.
There's a bit of set-up involved each time as the pieces are placed on the central board. Each player will be taking one or more pieces from this board each turn based on certain conditions and restrictions. Players then place one piece per turn on their individual boards as they try to build their park and maximize their points. Certain types of tiles are free, you can see them below on the bigger stacks, but they also don't have point values. On the other hand, these can be helpful in moving you to the bigger point pieces and can help you fill in your board, which allows you to build a bear sculpture (the octagonal pieces to the right in the picture below), which is also worth points. The sooner you build a bear sculpture the more points it is worth.
Each player begins with a large, nearly square tile and one non-point piece. The icons covered when a tile is placed determine what the player can choose from the central board on the next turn - from the green section, the white section, or the orange section. If a tile covers the construction workers, the player chooses a new large square tile in order to expand his board. The construction zone square on the tile is filled in last, only once the rest of the square is complete; the piece that goes there is the sculpture. The fully constructed final park consists of four large square tiles.
Above is my board after my first two turns. In the picture below you can see each of us building our own personal board/park.
Below is my board a bit further into the game.
The square grids have to touch orthogonally but various configurations are possible. I took pictures of each of the other boards at the end of a game; we each decided on a different set-up for our squares.
We've played 3 times. The second time we played with a variant that makes the game a little more advanced and somewhat more high scoring by providing additional point cards that involve additional goals, such as having one of each type of the white pieces or having three of a certain type of bear enclosure and so on. For me this made it much more challenging, as I found myself getting a little too scattered in terms of my decision-making, whether to go for the high point tiles on the central board or to try to fill in a square first for a high-point sculpture or to go for one of the goals and get points in that way. Though theses goal tiles allow for a higher scoring game, I went from 71 points on my first (basic) game to 51 points in the second (advanced game). On the other hand, all three other players went from scores in the 80s in the first (basic) round to scores over 100 in the second (advanced) round. At my request we played the basic version again, and I managed to score 86 and to come in second (first place being 87), so I think I'm on my way to developing some decent strategy - strategy which seems to have come naturally to my husband and sons! (I think they're better at visualizing territory and shapes than I am . . .)
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