Build your own bear park in Barenpark!

When was the last time you’ve been to a bear park?

What’s that – you’ve never been to a bear park?

Well, you’re missing out!

One of my favorite places to visit is Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming in the Western US. The biggest draw for me is the chance to see wildlife in such a beautiful place. Bison and elk are pretty much a given to see while there. And I’m always excited when I can spot moose. But I’m even more excited when I’m lucky enough to see a bear!

Unfortunately, that’s not as predictable. I’ve only seen a bear or two a few times in Yellowstone.

However, there are few places near Yellowstone where you’re guaranteed to see bear. Places like Grizzly and Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone, Montana or Yellowstone Bear World near Rexburg, Idaho let you see bear nice and close. Sure, it’s not as exciting as spotting them in the wild, but it’s still pretty cool to visit a bear park.

When I first heard about the board game Barenpark, by Lookout Games, I knew I had to give it a try.

It took me a while to do so because for a while it was hard to get a copy. But I finally got to play Barenpark at Salt Con 2019. And as I’d anticipated, I enjoyed it enough to get a copy of the game for our family.

 

How to Play Barenpark

In Barenpark, players compete to build the best bear park complete with enclosures, animal houses, and green areas. They do so by claiming Tetris-like shaped tiles and adding them to their park grounds. Each animal enclosure has a certain point value and players earn additional points through Bear Statues and bonus achievements.

To set up, all the tiles are placed in their designated spots on the central board stacked with the highest value on top. Each player randomly takes a Park Entrance as their starting park board. Depending on the player order, each player also gets a different starting Green Area tile which they’ll place on their first turn (such as Playground, Food Street, or Toilet). The additional Park Area boards are stacked into two piles.

A player’s turn consists of 3 steps: Place a Tile, Evaluate Icons, and possibly Place a Bear Statue.

1. Place a Tile: During this step, the player places 1 tile in their park. Even if the player has more than one tile in their personal supply, they may only place one tile. The tile may be oriented any way the player chooses. It must be placed orthogonally adjacent to another previously placed tile (except for the first tile), may not cover another piece, may not cover a Pit, and may not hang over the edge of the park area.

If a player doesn’t have any tiles in their personal supply that they could place on their board, the must Pass. They take a free Green Area tile and places it in their personal supply. Then their turn is over.

2. Evaluate Icons: When a tile is placed, the player takes actions based on the icons they covered in their park. The benefits of covering the different icons are:

Green Wheelbarrow – The player takes a Green Area tile of their choice from the central board and adds it to their personal supply.

White Cement Truck – The player takes the top white Animal House from a pile of their choice and adds it to their personal supply. (Or they may take a Green Area tile.)

Orange Excavator – The player takes an orange Animal Enclosure of their choice and adds it to their personal supply. (Or they may take a Green Area or White Animal House tile.)

Construction Crew – The player takes the top Park Area board from one of the two piles and immediately adds it to their park. They must place it orthogonally adjacent to another Park Area so the edges fully align. All the icons on the new board must also match the orientation of the rest of the park. A park can only have a maximum of 4 Park Area boards (including the Entrance).

3. Place a Bear Statue: If the player has covered all spaces on a Park Area board (except for the Pit), they claim a Bear Statue with the highest value from the supply and place it on the Pit space on that Park Area.

Players continue taking turns until one player completely fills all 4 Park Area boards of their park. Each other player gets one more turn. Then the game ends and players score their parks.

To score, players add up the values shown on the tiles in their park (Animal Houses, Enclosures, and Bear Statues). The player with the most points is the winner!

Advanced Variant

Barenpark also includes special scoring tiles for certain achievements. Once players have the hang of the main game, they can add in these achievements.

There are 10 types of achievements in the game. At the start of the game, players randomly choose 3 types of achievements to include in the game. There are 3 copies of each achievement type and they are stacked with the highest point value on top.

For a 4th step on a player’s turn, they may claim the top achievement tile of a stack if they meet the indicated requirements.

For example, if a player has 3 Polar Bear tiles or 3 Panda tile in their park. Or a player has a cluster of 6 Green Areas. Or all 3 orange Enclosures in their park form a cluster. Or there’s at least one of each of the four different Animal House shapes in their park. And so on.

 

Can the whole family enjoy Barenpark?

As with most games we choose to review, Barenpark is a great family board game. After all, that’s the whole reason I wanted a copy of the game after playing it.

If you haven’t noticed in our reviews, we love tile-laying games. And even though we have a bunch of tile-laying games already, we love finding those that still offer something new. And Barenpark hits that mark.

Even though every player is building their own park, there’s still player interaction. While players don’t directly touch other players’ parks, they do impact others by which tiles they claim.

The white Animal Houses have multiple copies of the same shape. However, the value of each one goes down as the top tiles are removed. So the sooner you claim a shape, the higher value you’ll get of that shape.

And the orange Enclosures only have one of each shape. So when that shape is claimed by another player, you’re out of luck. Both that value and that shape are history for you.

But since there aren’t any direct attacks against other players, younger kids won’t feel attacked. It’s more that opportunities are missed.

We also love the challenge of choosing which tiles to take and where to place them. The game is all about good placement with an eye on planning for the future — since the icons you cover up with one tile will determine which tiles you’ll get to choose from to claim and place on future turns.

And it’s that unique chain of placing, claiming, and placing that keeps us going back for more.

We also need to mention the great artwork for the game. We’ll admit there isn’t a big tie between the theme and the game play itself. But these aren’t just boring shapes to place. They’re fun to get and place because of the neatly designed artwork.

It’s fun to see the different bears and their habitats being added to your park. And even the Green Areas have fun artwork for the playgrounds, food stalls, and even the toilets.

The central board itself also includes helpful reminders. At the outset, players stack different valued tiles depending on the number of players. Which tiles to stack are printed right on the board next to the Animal House spaces. Very nice touch!

Plus, Barenpark is also a game that no matter whether you win or lose on points, it’s fun to see your different bear park configurations at the end of the game. There’s still a sense of accomplishment even if you don’t get the best score.

And that’s pretty sweet for a family game!

 

How does Barenpark score on our “Let’s Play Again” game meter?

As you might have guessed, Barenpark scores high on our “let’s play again” family game meter.

While the game play, flow, and tiles are the same every game, the Park Area boards are all unique and present the target icons in different configurations on each board. This means you’ll end up with a different bear park every time.

We also always play with the Variant where random achievements are included at the outset of each game. Since only 3 of the 10 achievements are included each game, this presents unique objective options for players to compete for. Which in turn means every game will play out differently.

If you’re looking for a fun tile-laying game with interesting choices throughout for your family, we’d recommend giving Barenpark a go!

We’d like to thank Miniature Market for a review copy of Barenpark.