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What’s that old saying…..”happy as a pig in muck”? Well in Dirty Pig that’s exactly the point. In fact, it’s the name of the game!
Dirty Card Play
Dirty pig (Total) is a 10 year anniversary edition of the original game. It’s light, fast, family fun with cute artwork. And now it also comes in one of those oooh-worthy magnetic catch boxes! So how do we get down and dirty with these piggies?
Each player starts with 3/4/5 clean pig cards (depending on 4/3/2 player count) and 3 cards from the deck in their hand. Then on your turn, you play 1 card. You can either play it to one of your piggies, or you can cast it off to the discard pile.
If you play it, you get to do the action (or set yourself up for a later action involving a set of cards). If you discard it, play passes to the next person. Either way, you draw back to three cards in hand at the end of your turn. The game ends when the fastest farmer makes all their piggies marvellously muddy!
Shut The Barn Door
Sounds simple? Well, that’s good because it is! There’s basically one rule – play a card, pick up a card. But that one action creates a lot of take-that, set collecting, card drafting fun!
I should mention that each card has a particular effect, and there are a whole barnful of them! But always remember that muddy is most marvellous. If you draw a mud card, you can play it to one of your piggies and flip a sparklingly clean sow over. Yep, that’s right; it’s mud bath time!
But, that doesn’t mean Miss Mudtastic is going to stay down and dirty forever. If another player (or you) plays a rain card, all the dirty piggies get flipped back over. And whilst that might seem a strange thing to do to yourself, self-sabotage might be the key to putting other farmers back a turn or two!
Although, if you have been canny and played a barn card to one of your dirty dames first, the rain won’t touch them when you send everyone else for a cleanse! But this wouldn’t be farmyard fiendish if the barn withstood all! If someone plays a lightning card and you don’t have a protective rod installed on your piggy des-res, poof! Gone in a puff of smoke! And other farmers won’t be able to keep their hands off your prize piggies. So you had better play a lock card to shut them and their sponges out of your barn!
Pretty As A Pig
There’s a lot of fun in this little box. And what’s more, there’s even an included expansion that brings more actions into the yard as well as awards! The age range advises 7+ and I’d say that’s right. Our 7 year old loves flipping the piggies over and muddying them up. And when he can destroy daddy’s barn, then his face lights up like, well, lightning! Haha. But that’s not to say us far older farmers aren’t having fun! I’ve played this against my husband and he is a pig-flipping fiend! And nothing pleases me more than making it rain all over his unprotected porkers!
And yes, take-that is all over this game. Piggies flip back and forth a lot as actions are inflicted and then reversed. For a moment you wonder whether you’ll ever reach the hallowed target. But suddenly someone muddies their last pig and it’s all over! And the funny artwork never really makes it feel that mean. Plus I like that the set collection element introduces the possibility of protection and slows down the race a little. After all, muddy piggies may be happy piggies. But they are also precarious piggies without some farmyard fortification!
For a simple one deck filler card game, the components are lovely. And I am definitely including the box in that! I am a sucker for games that play straight out the box and this magnetic catch model unfolds to give a place for the deck and discard pile. It’s also decorated inside and out which is lovely and reminds me of My Gold Mine (which is another great title in this new small box range from Kosmos).
When we play Dirty Pig, I can’t help but feel like I am trying to keep my hogs happy which I know sounds crazy but it makes me laugh! Maybe living on a farm has changed me, but revenge in this game can come quick and fast if you draw some helpful cards. And on that, luck is a factor. But that’s always the case in drafting games. But hand in hand with that goes the increased replayability factor of random draws. And a game goes so fast that there’s always time for another one to get your own back on another pesky piggy purifier!
