Back in the 90s there was an online game called Flinging Poo at Kids in the Zoo. I played it obsessively for a while. It was a cute animated game where you were a monkey in the zoo flinging poo at children, the other animals and passing folks (except for the Zoo keeper who would beat you with a broom if you hit him). Because I had such fond memories of the browser game, when I heard about Poo: The Card Game, I just had to play it.
As one of the monkeys in a cage at the zoo, your goal is to try to remain as clean as possible while flinging as much poo as you can at your friends. To do this, you are armed with an array of weapons from Pellet Poo (does 1 damage point) to King Kong Poo (does 5 damage points). In addition to the regular poo, there are Special Poo cards that can increase damage done to your opponents or even hit more than one target at a time. For example, the Devil Poo does 3 damage points to ALL players except you. Once a player hits 15 poo points, they are eliminated from the game.
The first player eliminated, though, can grab and play The Golden Banana card and take their points down to 8 and stay in the game, so it’s not so bad to be the first player “out”, but that’s not the only save option available. There are Defense cards such as Buddy’s Face (exactly what it sounds like: grab a friend to use as a shield) and Mishap cards (such as Montezuma’s Revenge where you can dodge the poo and 2 points bounce back at the flinger).
Event Cards provide special circumstances that can help, too. Is all the poo at your disposal not doing enough damage to keep you from losing? Play the Reinforcements card, discard your low-point poo, and draw replacement cards. With any luck, you might draw something like Keepers got the Hose and wash away some of that stench (and points along with it).
Still not clean enough to stay in the game? There are Clean cards, too! Maybe you’ll get lucky enough to draw Dip in the Pool (removes 4 points) or Found a Towel (removes 2 points). Is someone being particularly nasty to you? Maybe Sharing the Love with another player will help (removes 2 poo from you and adds it to any player you like).
The illustrations in Poo: The Card Game remind me a bit of Disney’s Tarzan because they are more like animation frames than cartoons or comics, and have more depth then the traditional children’s book illustrations. The colors are vibrant and faces are expressive. One of my favorite illustrations is on the Dodge card. It depicts a monkey hiding behind an unsuspecting gorilla that’s munching on leaves, completely unaware he’s about to get hit in the face with the poo meant for you.
Game play is simple and quick to learn. The only difficulty you might have is the scoring because you are constantly adding and removing points. We tried a few different things (making and erasing hash marks, numbers, etc.) but I think the easiest way to keep score is either with a 20 sided dragon die for each player or plastic bingo chips. With the dice, you just rotate your die to the number of points you now have as they are added or removed. With the bingo chips, toss them from a discard pile to your opponent’s chip pile after you play your card, and move them from your chip pile to the discard pile as you play Clean cards or poo points get removed from you in any other way.
It was a fun game to play, and one thing we agreed on is that there is an aspect of the game that reminded us of the card game Speed. You see, there is a 5 Banana Rule (as in 1 banana, 2 banana, 3 banana…) in which each player has only 5 seconds to play their turn or lose it. Once you are familiar with the cards (and don’t have to spend time reading them), the game’s pace moves quickly. It’s a fast-flying, vicious game that will keep everyone cringing and laughing at the same time.
Poo: The Card Game is for 2 to 8 players, ages 8 and up, and includes 110 playing cards:
- 40 Poo cards
- 14 Special Poo cards
- 10 Mishap cards
- 14 Defense cards
- 14 Event cards
- 16 Clean cards
- 2 The Golden Banana cards
Poo: The Card Game can be purchased at your local game shop or at Amazon.